Beyond the boundary

Only if someone could sponsor my vacation to China. Or Russia; or Brazil; or Canada. Oh no, not Canada, I will surely find traces of cric...

Only if someone could sponsor my vacation to China. Or Russia; or Brazil; or Canada. Oh no, not Canada, I will surely find traces of cricket even there. That8217;s the last thing I would want now, especially after the maddening past two months, when everything 8212; from my auto ride to the tea breaks in the office canteen 8212; would veer around the World Cup; when my day started at twelve and extended well beyond three in the morning; when I was eating, drinking and sleeping only cricket. Right now, I8217;m looking only for an escape route.

It was only weeks ago, when the World Cup fever was hotting up, that I longed to be quot;close to the actionquot;. Delhi was the closest I could get, and my sports editor8217;s quot;invitationquot; to be a part of the World Cup desk had thrilled me to bits. An added incentive was the quot;privilegequot; to watch all the matches live on TV. I did that dutifully for the first few days, but coinciding with India8217;s downward performance graph in the Cup, the zest began to flag.

I was then required to smoothen India8217;s road to the next round, coming up with different equations with only one message: India Can Still Make It. I really loved doing this, thinking that readers would be amazed at my reading of the game, till I would wake up the next morning to find writers in other newspapers coming up with similar theories! But the Indians were incorrigible, proving to be spoilsports though they would blame it on other teams.

Yet another setback for them, and I would be back at the office computer, quot;reworkingquot; their escape routes and playing with different scenarios again. Funnily, it led to a situation where I had to bite more than I could actually chew 8212; trying to fix matches involving other teams as well. Office apart, I had to share my quot;expert commentsquot; with just about everybody, even the servant at home. I had to, because he just wouldn8217;t give me the TV remote, insisting on watching movies instead! No prizes for guessing who would prevail in the end.

Even calls back home to my folks in Chandigarh invariably centered around cricket. quot;Do something about Azhar,quot; my father would suggest; quot;the Indian team must have been bribed to lose,quot; my sister would comment. Then, like a seasoned pro, I would try to buttress their knowledge and information acirc;euro;rdquo; portray the inside view of the dressing room conceived purely on my own assumptions.

When India8217;s exit became a certainty, I, like many other Indians, lost interest in the Cup. For me the countdown had begun. It would be eight, seven, six8230; days to go for the World Cup to end. June 20 was the Big Day, the final, also the day our magnanimous sports editor was to throw a bash for his quot;deserving champsquot;. The final may have been dull, but who cares? The World Cup is over at last until 2003, that is and we can breathe easy.

Yeh Dil Maange No More Cricket! Not at least for some time. I am a free bird now, looking forward to going back home 8212; I already have quite a few things lined up.

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Surprise, surprise. The first item on my agenda is cricket again. No, it8217;s not back to the cricketers, the notebook and the laptop again. Actually, I am looking forward to playing the game myself now. After their matches comes my match. My club is slated to play a local tournament in Chandigarh and I have already asked my mother to take out my playing kit.

Surely, the grass in greener on the other side of the playing field. Mera Dil Maange Woh Cricket!

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