A dissenting note

It's no fun being in a minority. Ask me, I know. I'm not talking about ethnic, racial, linguistic or any of the other minorities that get...

It8217;s no fun being in a minority. Ask me, I know. I8217;m not talking about ethnic, racial, linguistic or any of the other minorities that get discussed ad nauseum. I8217;m talking of a sporting minority. I8217;m talking about being a football fan when the cricket World Cup is on. Like the guy in the TV ad who says that the World Cup is over, mate. Indeed it is. Last year, in France, to be precise. But try telling that to the sports desk, to the editors, to the man on the street; they8217;ll think you8217;ve lost a couple of screws. It8217;s not that I don8217;t like cricket; I do. I can sit and watch the television for hours no matter who8217;s playing as long as they8217;re making a game of it. But I8217;ve come to the conclusion that for sheer passion and grit acirc;euro;rdquo; and isn8217;t that what sport is made of? acirc;euro;rdquo; cricket doesn8217;t even begin to touch football. And before the lynch-mob or the men in white come for me, let me explain.

Cricket, in India, draws crowds. Right? Wrong. Only cricket at the international level tests and one-dayers, and then tooonly when India is playing. Well, maybe Pak-istan and Sri Lanka, too. But pit two non-Asian teams against each other and you8217;re risking an empty stadium. I well remember one of the best matches of the 1987 Reliance Cup, Zimbabwe against New Zealand, when Traicos8217;s lads very nearly caused an upset. The few spectators at Eden Gardens 8212; a couple more than there were to see Pakistan win earlier this year 8212; went home thrilled; but there were just a few at hand. So how many of us love cricket? How many of us would go to watch an inter-university match? For that matter, how many turned up to see the Ranji Trophy final this year?

Now cue to the cable networks8217; coverage of football overseas. Forget the giants, forget Man United and Arsenal, forget Ronaldo and Zidane. Watch lowly Nottingham Forest and Charlton; more specifically, watch their supporters. They don8217;t care if their team has lost six games in a row; they don8217;t care if the side is being relegated to a lower division. It8217;s their team, it8217;s who they willsupport, come what may. It8217;s simple. It8217;s football. No sport acirc;euro;rdquo; rather, no sport televised today acirc;euro;rdquo; offers the opportunity to see a team through a season, its ups, its downs. So what if Pakistan beat India 5-0 in Toronto; there8217;s a chance to make up for that in Sharjah, Australia, India, wherever. Enough opportunities to make those defeats ephemeral, their impact momentary. But a team sent down to a lower division has to do time, as it were, for one whole year and can get parole only for good behaviour.

Okay, you then say, is there anything more riveting than the sight of Sachin hitting Akram for six fours in an over? Yes, there is: The deliciously morbid fascination in watching Blackburn Rovers, having spent more than Aring;ldquo;20 million on new players in just the past nine months, realise that money alone cannot buy success. Four years ago they were the top team, bar none, in England. Today, they8217;re headed into the lower ranks. It8217;s these slings and arrows, all too rare in today8217;s international cricket, that givefootball the edge.

Maybe TV has something to do with it; maybe, by making international cricket so accessible, so dominating, so omnipresent, it has killed any appetite there was for the domestic game. Why watch Bengal vs Baroda minus the stars, at that when you can watch India vs Pakistan? Maybe those who control the game acirc;euro;rdquo; the broadcasters, of course acirc;euro;rdquo; can take a leaf out of what8217;s happened in the UK and, with different sports, in the rest of the western world: Build up the basics before you reach for the stars. That8217;s why English and Italian, and Spanish and even Norwegian league football will always be watched in fact, attendances at English grounds have increased over the past 10 years regardless of how the national team fares. In India, we don8217;t love cricket; we love the stars. Therein lies the difference.