In the name of the Game..

I am a die-hard fan of Cricket.. any chance I get to play or watch I jump and take it up with both hands.. and like many in our generation, my love for the game stemmed from a few great players who provided us so much joy that it had an unparalleled effect on our upbringing. A sports-person's ability to inspire is his biggest USP.. and I have been fortunate to live at a time where in there have been quite a few awe inspiring sport stars. 

My love for the game began at a very young age. The fact that my uncle was a big fan played a big part in this as I got to watch a lot of cricket that he watched. Every day we got back from school the one major part we looked forward to was the 2-3 hours of cricket that we played in our front yard. This used to be our highest point of the day. Watching Cricket and playing cricket from a single digit age went on to add my appreciation for the nuances of the game.

Now when I look back, I realize that the people who inspired me and have given me so many memories to cherish have all almost hung up their boots. I can see all the action that I watched as a kid when i close my eyes.. the images are still clear.. and it only feels like yesterday that i watched this action unveil..! What an impact these champs had on me. And when i say champs let me name some of them.. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath, Shane Warne, Steve Waugh, Alan Donald, Waqar Younis, Curtly Ambrose and Brian Charles Lara.. I guess most these names will be part of any Cricket lovers list.. and yes.. the list of Indian Cricketers are longer as I was, am and will always remain an Indian Cricket fan..

There are plenty of incidents of each one of these cricketers that are etched in my memory and I revisit them very often at the mere close of my eyes..! If I set out to explain in detail what they have done that made me so heads over heels crazy about cricket, I wouldn't know where to start or where to stop. Think of the many emotions these stars have made us undergo - joy, anger, sadness, heartbreak, disappointment, ecstasy, pride.. I can go on and elaborate a 100 incidents of such emotions having risen up during a single match..

At this juncture, I recollect an India vs Australia match that happened in the mid 90's.. Being a day and night match, it was going to take a bit longer to end than my usual bedtime hours.. Mother did not cut me any slack as the next day was a school day and I was sent to bed.. My elder brother however could watch the match as he was a good seven years older!!! How disappointed I was for being 'too young' to watch the match till 10:30PM! There I was turning left and right in my bed when my brother comes in and says 'I know you aren't sleeping.. things look hard for team India' . Then it was the wait for each over to end so that chetan(the Malayalam word for elder brother) would come and update me. What was happening in the cricket field was something magical as well. India were 8 down and needed around 50 plus runs to get home.. Sachin was out after having scored 88 I believe, and in the center was the combination of Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath. I remember that the match was being played in Bangalore and having heard the commentators mention 'that is Kumble's family' when a certain set of people were shown on screen at the ground. The wait between overs was unbearable. Imagining and creating vivid pictures of how the previous over played out in my mind as per the description given by chetan, I sat about waiting for updates. Then the updates came more often as chetan, knowing I'm waiting eagerly combined with his anxiety to share the good news would let me know as soon as a four or a six was hit. We did end up winning the match.. but more importantly what I understood that day as a 10 year old was that I had already been captured by the game and that there are many young kids my age who would have undergone the same. I never saw the replay of the part I missed in that match.. not because clips of it aren't available.. but because I wanted that description by chetan and my putting it into images in my mind to remain unaltered! :) It was a small piece of brothers bonding over a game of cricket.. how many such incidents would have happened the world over due to sports!

What the Sachin's, Dravid's, Kumble's, Warne's and Lara's did to inspire me, other sports people would have done to 100's of others. What they did is not just capture our imagination, but also enhance it up due to their exemplary actions in their respective sports. The game of cricket was just an eye opener to me. I ended up watching more and more sports from there. It is then that I realized the beauty of a Sampras serve and the never say die attitude of Agassi. I started admiring F1 races by Hakkinen and Schumacher.. Sports became a kind of stress buster and passion.

I have been blessed to be at a time when there have been many greats in sports.. from Sampras to Federer.. Sachin, Lara to Warne.. Schumacher Hakkinen to Alonso... Zidane, Figo to Nistelrooy - these are all stars who have given me joy due to the game they play and the way they play it. To me however the capability of sportstars to inspire is diminishing.. I am begining to feel that we do not have the kind of great players I grew up watching.. They just fail to capture my imagination.. Is it due to me reaching a particular phase of life or is it due to there being a decline in the ability of sport stars to inspire, I do not know.. I am inclined to go by the latter.