A Filmy Rescue of Cricket

I belong to a group of middle-aged, slightly-spherical Indian men that plays an enthusiastic and clumsy game of tennis every weekend. We were relaxing at the court-side after an energetic session a few weeks ago, when a fellow player announced in a voice reeking with smugness: “Sorry, Folks, I can’t play next week. I’m off to Australia to watch the game.”

“Wow!” I said, “When are you going to Melbourne?”

“The Melbourne game is over, ass. I’m going to Perth tomorrow for the third test in the four-test series.”

“There’s another game going on in Melbourne,” I said, “It’s called tennis. It’s the game we just finished playing. But of course it’s only a Grand Slam event, one of the four biggest tennis tournaments of the year. That’s nothing compared to an India-Australia cricket test.”

Sarcasm about the magnificence of cricket slides past a die-hard cricket enthusiast like ice cubes on a marble floor.

“Exactly!” he said, “Unfortunately I’ll only catch the last two days of the test.”

However, India denied him that opportunity by completing the test match in three days flat. It was difficult, but we did it! By batting quickly and getting out of the way, we allowed the Australians to rack up 305 runs; then quickly lost four second-innings wickets by the end of day 2 with tight batting that yielded few runs. We continued day 3 in this ruthless vein and finished our innings so quickly (170 runs) that we could deny the Australians the chance to bat again and therefore laugh at their discomfiture all the way to the locker room. This was better than our performance in the first two tests: in Melbourne, we could not deny Australians their second innings’ batting and in Sydney, though we lost comfortably – by an innings and 68 runs – we allowed Australia to play the game for four full days.

But for my friend, the Perth trip was a waste. Instead, if he had gone to Melbourne for the Nadal-Djokovic final, he would have witnessed a wonderful contest, but I didn’t mention this because for him, nothing – not even a six-hour epic between the world’s top two tennis players – would compare to a cricket match featuring India.

Most Indians are maniacally obsessed with cricket… and films. So when our cricketers let us down, it’s natural that we turn to our film stars for inspiration. After the debacle in Australia, advertisers, according to an article in India Today, have begun to “prefer film stars over cricketers”. And the public prefers film stars over cricketers to play cricket.

“So what do you think about our performance in Australia?” I asked my mother when I called her last weekend.

“Don’t talk to me about the Indian cricket team,” she said.

“Ok, ok, what films have you watched recently?”

Pacified, she talked about her latest achievements on the film-watching front; then said: “But I watched something even better – a cricket match between Mumbai and Kerala. It was superb!”

I was confused. “But you didn’t want to talk about cricket.”

“I don’t want to talk about the Indian cricket team. The Celebrity Cricket League – played by our film stars – is different: these fellows play decent cricket.”

She went on to describe the match in detail. Apparently the Kerala boys had put in a performance that was wonderful to behold. In particular, she said, Mohan Lal, the roly-poly Malayalam film star and captain of the Kerala Strikers, had bowled excellently, displaying energy and speed that belied his girth.  But unfortunately in the next match against the Telugu Warriors, he could not wield his magic and the Strikers lost miserably.

I was fascinated by her narration of these matches; so I Googled “CCL” and discovered that the Celebrity Cricket League is immensely popular. Reading about the performance of our film heroes – who will compete in the semi-finals and finals this weekend – I realized that this was inevitable. Who are better qualified to fill the cricket void created by the dismal performance of the Indian cricket team than our film stars? After all, they routinely vanquish armies, quell riots and uplift humanity on the screen. Also, if cricketers can act, surely actors can play cricket? In any case, they can’t do much worse than our boys did in Australia.