Cricket takes over, forget everything else

When the curtain draws on Friday morning for the opening game between hosts England and defending champions Sri Lanka, it8217;s not just the full house at the famed ground that will witness the spectacle, but also a worldwide record audience of nearly 2 billion who will partake the feast. The World Cup will be inaugurated as much on the television screens in New Delhi living rooms and cinema screens in New Jersey suburbs as atLord8217;s.

Frenchman Andre Maurois once tartly suggested that since the English were not very religious people, they invented cricket to get an idea of eternity. What rot, the purveyors of limited-overs cricket will say. Here is now a game that changes in the blink of an eye 8212; a searing yorker flung down in anger, a ferocious heave sailing on a wing and a prayer, a flying leap that intercepts a savagely struck ball. Aided by cutting edge broadcast technology, this World Cup will bring home in six weeks of play more action and drama, glory and pain, heartbreak and ecstasy, than all the editions before.

Who will win? Ladbrokes, the England8217;s most famous betting house, has placed South Africa on top at 5-2, and who can quarrel with that? A team of such immaculate discipline, incisive strategies, and immense single-mindedness has never graced the cricketing world. Only bad luck 8212; or an innings or spell of magical brilliance from an inspired opponent 8212; can halt them from powering to a win.

The hardyAustralians 10-3 and the mercurial Pakistanis 7-2 follow, with home-advantaged England at 5-1, ahead of even the declining West Indies at 9-1. Munificent India and fading Sri Lanka are bracketed at 10-1, while unheralded New Zealand bring up the rear among major cricketing nations at 20-1.

But these are mere numbers based on reputation and form. As anyone who has played the game will know, a player touched by a moment8217;s genius or an instant8217;s madness can win it or lose it.

For a generation of Indians 8212; and Caribbeans 8212; Lord8217;s holds indelible memories of that golden evening in 1983 when form and reputation turned turtle and the true cricketing potential of a country long underrated found utterance. Those shiny tears and lump in the throat of Kapil Dev standing on the pavilion balcony holding the trophy belonged to an entire nation, and who wouldn8217;t want to relive it?

Aloof and taciturn, Mohammed Azharuddin is not an inspirational leader or intuitive cricketer Kapil was, but in what are surely histwilight cricketing years, he wants to win the cup as badly as anyone else. He is not a brilliant captain, but even a decent run with the bat will shorten the odds.

8220;He8217;s no batsmen, he8217;s a conjurer,8221;an Australian commentator said once of an Indian player, while Neville Cardus waxed about how he changed the 8220;geometry of batsmanship to an esoteric legerdemain8230; with its own mysterious axis and balance.8221; Hove, where the Indians play South Africa on Saturday in the first game is the home ground of Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji 8212; who earned the paeans above 8212; and should Azhar reclaim even a bit of that oriental legacy and relieve the burden of expectation fromTendulkar, it will advance India8217;s claim on the title.

For the nonce, however, it is England versus Sri Lanka, two sides whose spirit and essence is expressed by leonine motifs. Alas, neither side has been worthy of lionisation. The joke over in the Tavern across Lord8217;s last night was that a pack of toothless lions are playing a pride of aging lions. Oras one English bowler confessed self-effacingly 8212; it will be the bland playing the bland. But the one team which will taste victory 8212; meat 8212; will open the killing season. Over then to Lord8217;s.