Where Cricket is a religion and every fan a Demigod.

In India, there is a common saying that Cricket is a religion and Sachin is the God. I reckon every cricket fan here is a self-proclaimed demi-god. In the sense, that irrespective of his education, background or no. of years he has actually played or followed the game, he is the only one who knows it all. And he knows it in a way like no one else does. No wonder, every nook and corner in our country is always buzzing with an intense cricketing debate, where every participant holds a strong view and interestingly the right view as well J. And per my observation you can classify these demi-god cricket fanatic in 6 broad categories.

The Factual Bombardier – He is the one who is always ready with numbers and statistics and will try to win every argument by the sheer weight of these nos. He will bombard you with a bevy of nos. the moment you tell him that whenever Sachin scored a 100, India lost or Sachin never scored when the team needed it the most. So if you wish to indulge into a debate with one such gentleman, be ready for a heavy statistics dossier.

The Old times Advocate – Now whatever our current stars do, this breed of fan would downplay that by singing praises in favour of the yesteryear greats. So if you go gaga over Virat Kohli or Sachin Tendulkar, be ready to hear that ‘these new age stars are no match to the old war horses like Gavaskar and Richards’. And if you try to defend your stars by their nos., they will quickly resort to, ‘ the bowlers of this era are hardly a match to the legends of 70s & 80s, so these nos against poor bowling attacks count for nothing’.

The long lost fanatic – He is someone who was once upon a time a cricket fan but has now lost the appetite to follow the game and hence isn’t as updated today. But interestingly, he fails to accept the fact that he isn’t abreast with the current know-how of the game and goes on debating with full gusto. So if you talk about Virat Kohli’s glorious run of form, he will quickly jump and say ‘but he failed in all the matches in 2015 WC in OZ’. And if you politely update him with Kohli’s unbelievable streak of runs, he would either digress or downplay the fact saying ‘but still he has to become far more consistent to be a good player’.

The ever so pessimist cribber – Whatever be the state of the match, be it the start of the match, or a sure shot winning situation, this guy will make sure that you always have that semblance of doubt about our chances in the match. So even if we need 2 runs of the last over with 5 wickets in hand, he will quickly quip ‘ don’t trust them to win as yet, they  can still get all out’. Or even if we are playing against a low rung team, he will be the one to remind you of a potential upset.

The bubbly dynamite – How often have you come across a wannabe female Cricket lover who tries very hard to portray herself as the most die-hard fan (in a group of Cricket fanatic male friends) but sooner than later goofs up by asking something very trivial. Something like, ‘hey why is Dhoni not playing Zaheer today, I like him so much’ or if Rahane takes a catch they will credit that wicket to his name.

The I told you so irritant – And the most irritating of them all, the ones who come up with their ‘I told you so’ after something unexpected has already happened. So if Bumrah got hit for 4 sixes in the last over, this gentlemen would quickly say ‘ I told you so, he will leak runs in this over’. Or if a part timer comes and gets a wicket 1^st ball, he will immediately pop up saying, ‘ see, I told you he will strike’ and so on.

And the most interesting and hilarious cricketing discussions happen when these varied cricketing demi-gods unite for a post-match dissection. So in a country where Cricket is a religion and every fan is a demigod, an expert with a very strong and ‘right’ point of view, you can never take the risk of underestimating or downplaying the Cricketing prowess of any Cricket fan.

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Post Script – And then, there is also a breed of Cricket fanatics who are not so concerned about their team but are only bothered about the players they have selected in their team – The Fantasy League Maniacs J.