Cricket heat is cool

It’s the world cup cricket season. Once again, the heat levels of cricket fever will evoke different states of mind in different people and impacts on the life of almost every Sri Lankan. Perhaps it’s the same in the whole of the sub-continent. The young, the old, rural folk, school kids, housewives in the cities, office and factory workers, magnates of business... no one is spared.

This perhaps is one time when, even the otherwise oblivious among our Diaspora, begin to ‘feel’ for their ‘home’ team. Now that we have won one world cup series, being in the finals of another and have an outfit that is formidable, the feel for the team has become even stronger.

Makes no sense

A recent posting by a Face Book friend, a lady of Sri Lankan origin born and bred in Malaysia, illustrates the nature of how far and wide this impact is felt. Married to a cricket crazy Sri Lankan, this is what she said on her FB blog post; “CRICKET makes no sense to me at all. My husband has been trying to explain the game to me for years, but I still don’t understand what he is talking about. I told him that if the players got drunk before the game was played, it would be a better game to watch. Then they will be hitting more sixes and fours and the game will be over faster”.

I would place a self imposed restriction on the ‘players getting drunk’ bit of her comment keeping with the norms set by the Media Ministry is not allowing any references or scenes relating to the consumption of alcoholic or tobacco-based substances in public communications.

She went on to add “Why, the name cricket? It is so confusing to call a game cricket. The rules are worse, you bowl a maiden over, you score a duck, you go for a six, you have square legs, short legs, long legs and you are stumped”. She missed out on leg-before-wicket, silly mid-off and the more recent additions to the parlance of the Dusshra and the Dil scoop. Another friend of hers commenting said “Never did understand cricket too. The only cricket I know are those tiny insects that make a whole lot of noise at night and of course the famous Jiminy Cricket...”.

What they in Malaysia would not realise is how some stars in our contemporary music scene were falling over each other to create and sing cricket world cup related patriotic songs.

Some went on to even insult others to make us look good and got censored, while others made good by getting official recognition of Sri Lanka Cricket. Yet others sold consumer products riding on the ‘songs for cricket’ platform. As always we sell or get sold, no matter where, how or when. Though cricket is dubbed the ‘gentlemen’s game’, it is a truism that stands no different.

People’s game

No matter who says what, this game we inherited from our colonial masters has taken us all in. Today, it is independent Sri Lanka’s national game and no one, I mean not even the diehard extremists who cry foul of our colonial hangovers and elitist ways will dare to place cricket on that agenda of foul influences. It is today a people’s game played not only in impressive stadiums but on street corners, post-harvest paddy fields, foot paths temple grounds and even on flat sandy beaches.

With the new stadium at Suriyawewa staging the opening game for Sri Lanka, the Deep South where I live, turned on a carnival atmosphere. Thankfully, most who sought got tickets to the game. It was a great idea to make the people of the area part of the excitement when world cup cricket was brought to their door-step for the very first time. Prasanna, a lad now in his early thirties from nearby Ussangoda had never before in his life seen live, a big cricket match played in all its glory. All he had been exposed to were games shown on the television screen. He was elated having been to the Sri Lanka -Canada game and spoke of the thrill of this unforgettable moment in his life with child like excitement.

Champions needed

For sometime now, Sanath Jayasuriya, the master blaster from Matara, was the closest connection they had to international cricket. Now with Suriyawewa, their hopes are up for more stars to be born.

Prasanna thinks that Ambilipitiya, Deberawewa, Hambantota and Hungama will be potential centres that could breed them. He rightfully thinks that a stadium alone may not make that happen. His hope is that there will be more and more support given to the schools in the area to play and excel in the game.

His lament was that his old school, a Maha Vidyalaya close to Nonagama, did not have what was needed to take the game on when he was a student and still does not.

According to him, the school has been gifted some cricket gear and a have a basic facility of a playground. Yet, among the school’s teachers there is no one to champion the cause of promoting the game among the children, he thinks. Apparently, they are too busy playing school politics and earning extra bucks with after-school tuition classes and not akin to focusing strongly on education or the ‘bahira kriyakarakam’ of the students.

Right leadership

Perhaps a stronger joint campaign launched by Sri Lanka Cricket in association with the provincial education authorities will be the way forward to make it happen. I am of the view that it is the commitment and dedication of the principal and the teacher in charge that will go to make cricket or any other educational or sport program work well at a school.

The focus therefore needs to shift from the mere provision of facilities and coaching camps to getting the right leadership in place to make it work. The heat of world cup cricket is upon us and lots of anecdotes come to mind yearning to be shared.

How cricket may be a catalyst in teaching English, how cricket may be a unifier of people of different races and how cricket brought together strangest of bed fellows. Leaving all of that for another day, let me ask you if you, like me, have begun to feel the cool heat of WC cricket around you? [email protected]