I have taken this tagline from promos of ICL T-20 tournaments, It really describe the passion I share with 95% of Indians or for that matter people in the Indian subcontinent. I really cant remember at any stage of my life I haven’t played that game be it school days , college ,University or 8 years of professional career . There are so many memories associated with playing cricket bunking classes in school to play matches and training at stadium during summer breaks. I remember while in college we used to attend one or two classes in the morning and then went straight out in the field and join local guys in their matches.Its so easy to mix up with local guys when you are not in your hometown with this kind of connection , I made so many friends during my college and University because of this.
I remember when I came to Delhi for a job in 2001 and was living in Gautam Nagar which is close to Gulmohar Park in South Delhi . We used to play in local parks in Gulmohar park where a lot of bureaucrat, judges and journalist etc put up .Once we had tough time when somebody dialed 100 and called PCR as they thought we were disturbing the society by playing in the park, However we managed the situation with one of our friends who was son of ACP south district otherwise we could have been booked for violating law and order of a otherwise peaceful society.
@Pearson I remember when I was playing my first match against Penguin at Siri Fort Sports Club height of passion I could see there was Srini fielding on the ground with a portable radio in his hand, which he was continuously pressing against his ears as some interesting match was going on and he didn’t want to miss the commentary, whenver ball was hit towards him he used to field it with his legs like football….
Everywhere I go generally I would find someone with similar interest, this reminds me of my cabbie when I used to visit Dubai, His name was Razi Khan he was a young Pathan from Peshawar (Pakistan) . Whenever I went to cover Dubai I used to call him for coverage of UAE schools as he had very good knowledge of UAE and was able to locate each and every school very easily. We started early morning at around 6 – 6.30 for the schools to avoid office hour rush and traffic jam and covered schools till 5 – 5.30 in the evening so we shared a lot of things and the most we discussed was cricket and hindi movies. Although he had never played cricket himself but was a hard core fan of Pakistani cricket team specially Wasim and Waqar to my surprise he didn’t like Shoaib at all but at the same time he admired Sachin a lot.
It also reminds me when we went out for NSM to Colombo in 2005 & checked in at Taj Bentota , We came out of the hotel to move around and buy a couple of batteries for my camera , outside at the grocery shop their was this young guy who couldn’t speak English, neither we knew the local language but still he tried to talk to us he first said ‘India’ I nodded my head and said yes next thing he said was Sachin ……good , I again nodded my head he carried on and said….. Dravid…….also good ….. I again nodded my head in agreement I was bit hesitant earlier but then I also started talking to him in the similar manner and later on he was so happy that he ended up giving us a good discount … Well that’s cricket which is a language in itself , a religion …. a culture …philosophy ………a passion for life for so many people like me……
Prashant
I remember when I came to Delhi for a job in 2001 and was living in Gautam Nagar which is close to Gulmohar Park in South Delhi . We used to play in local parks in Gulmohar park where a lot of bureaucrat, judges and journalist etc put up .Once we had tough time when somebody dialed 100 and called PCR as they thought we were disturbing the society by playing in the park, However we managed the situation with one of our friends who was son of ACP south district otherwise we could have been booked for violating law and order of a otherwise peaceful society.
@Pearson I remember when I was playing my first match against Penguin at Siri Fort Sports Club height of passion I could see there was Srini fielding on the ground with a portable radio in his hand, which he was continuously pressing against his ears as some interesting match was going on and he didn’t want to miss the commentary, whenver ball was hit towards him he used to field it with his legs like football….
Everywhere I go generally I would find someone with similar interest, this reminds me of my cabbie when I used to visit Dubai, His name was Razi Khan he was a young Pathan from Peshawar (Pakistan) . Whenever I went to cover Dubai I used to call him for coverage of UAE schools as he had very good knowledge of UAE and was able to locate each and every school very easily. We started early morning at around 6 – 6.30 for the schools to avoid office hour rush and traffic jam and covered schools till 5 – 5.30 in the evening so we shared a lot of things and the most we discussed was cricket and hindi movies. Although he had never played cricket himself but was a hard core fan of Pakistani cricket team specially Wasim and Waqar to my surprise he didn’t like Shoaib at all but at the same time he admired Sachin a lot.
It also reminds me when we went out for NSM to Colombo in 2005 & checked in at Taj Bentota , We came out of the hotel to move around and buy a couple of batteries for my camera , outside at the grocery shop their was this young guy who couldn’t speak English, neither we knew the local language but still he tried to talk to us he first said ‘India’ I nodded my head and said yes next thing he said was Sachin ……good , I again nodded my head he carried on and said….. Dravid…….also good ….. I again nodded my head in agreement I was bit hesitant earlier but then I also started talking to him in the similar manner and later on he was so happy that he ended up giving us a good discount … Well that’s cricket which is a language in itself , a religion …. a culture …philosophy ………a passion for life for so many people like me……
Prashant
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