If there's one thing that I really, really dig, its the game of cricket. I can spend hours thinking, watching and talking about it without ever feeling bored of it. Every cricket match, whether its a test match, one-day international or a T20 match is a source of deep joy and endless entertainment for me.
I can never get tired of watching a batsman hit a delivery for a four or a six or a bowler running in at a lethal pace to bowl at the batsman. Whenever a batsman strikes the ball and starts running towards the other end, my mind too starts running, wondering about the path the game would take after the run has been completed. I start contemplating on the state of the match - how many more runs need to be scored? What is the required run-rate to win the game? How should the batsman approach the game at this stage? Countless possibilities, questions and doubts start flooding my mind after every delivery bowled, providing me intellectual stimulation of the highest kind.

And now we have Indian Premier League (IPL) which has raised the bar of excitement and stimulation to even greater heights. Can there be a greater joy than watching a bunch of men from different parts of the world grouped randomly, yet working together to prove they are the best in their ability to strike the ball with their willows for maximum number of runs in one-hundred-and-twenty deliveries that are hurled towards them at extremely high speeds?

Whether my favorite team wins or loses, the glorious game of cricket always provides me with ample opportunities to strike up a conversation with my office or room mates. Cricket unifies me with all members of my gender in a way which no other matter does. Whenever I run out of conversation with whomsoever I'm sharing room space, all I have to do is to ask that person if he saw last night's match. Nine out of ten times, the person with whom I'm sharing room space responds positively and for the next half hour or so, I can be assured of an intellectually enriching conversation discussing scores, statistics, shots played, catches taken or strategies adopted by the rival captains.

Its not just the game of cricket that is the source of delight to me. I also love to watch the interviews of winning & losing captain or the man of the match after the end of every match. It is always interesting to know what the losing captain will say to explain the defeat of his team. Would he blame the pitch condition or his poor luck in losing the toss? Whether he will pull up his batsmen or bowlers for not playing up to the mark? I can never tire of listening to the losing captain congratulating the winning team and admitting that his team was "completely outplayed in all departments of the game" and promising to the interviewer that they will put up a better show in the next match. Even more interesting to hear are the comments of the winning captain. No matter how many times I've heard winning captains utter these words, its always refreshing to hear them congratulate their players for their wonderful performances and thank the spectators for their support. But I wish the winning captains would not keep forgetting the vast number of television audiences who support them from their living rooms. We might be invisible to the players and their captains, but we support our teams with as much enthusiasm as those who manage to make it to the ground.

Another wonderful thing about cricket is that it is not over even after the match is over. After the interviews and award ceremony, I can look forward to a stimulating discussion on the match that was played by the best experts of the game. It is exhilarating to watch legends of the game like Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Ian Chappel, Geofrey Boycott or Tony Greig dissect every detail of the match played and analyze the performance of each and every player minutely with the help of action replays, animated graphics and detailed statistics. How interesting it is to know that so-and-so player played 59% of his shots towards the on-side or 13% of his shots towards the third man. Such interesting data helps me in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of every player which further helps me in making interesting and original comments when I'm discussing the game with my colleagues or friends. I can always count on these experts to provide me with interesting insights about various aspects of the game that an amateur cricket fan like me cannot be privy to. For example, if Sachin Tendulkar gets out very early playing a poor shot, I tend to get angry and wonder how such a great player like him can play such an irresponsible shot. But I can depend on expert commentators to explain to me how the bowler foxed Sachin into playing such a rash shot or how the extra wind or bounce resulted in the delivery deviating away from its normal course confusing poor Sachin.

People say cricket is like a religion to people like me. Roobbish!! (as Sir Geofrey Boycott would say) Can you watch a religious procession or a bhajan recital day after day for hours together without tiring of it? Do religious pravachans provide the kind of thrills, twists and turns, drama and excitement that every cricket match provides? Cricket is more than religion to me and to million of cricket fans of India. It would be more appropriate to say that religion is like cricket in India. Religion, to be frank, is quite irrelevant to the lives of most people and the only reason people cling on to their religious identities is because it feels safer for them to know that after their death they will be teleported to some place ruled by a familiar god rather than being hurled into vast, unending darkness of space into deep oblivion. If some ancient scripture had assured us that after our death we will go to a big, lush green field where we will see twenty-two gentlemen in white playing cricket, we would have no need for religions or its multitude of gods.

I wonder where I will go after I die. Cricket being an foreign game, I doubt whether our gods, ruling the heavenly worlds, would have imported and introduced it for the benefit of departed Indian cricket fans. (Unless of course, the crafty Englishmen have managed to conquer our heavens too and made our gods fall in love with the game) If the afterworlds turn out to be barren and bereft of cricket, unfortunately I will no longer be able to follow the glorious uncertainties of the game. As the beautiful Rafi song goes - 'yeh zindagi ke mele, duniya me kum na honge; afsos hum na honge'.

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