Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Obligatory Post on Cricket


I just realised that out of almost 700 posts on the blog in the last couple of years I haven't mentioned cricket even once. So I thought may be if there ever was a time, it is this. I was also surprised to see this picture on the main page of the new york times today. It has disappeared now. The full report here. (Includes this amusing observation - "Athleticism has never been associated with Indian cricket, nor with Indians in general, and that has been a chip on the shoulder of Indian manhood.") Never been a cricket fan, or indeed any sports fan. I find the whole idea completely alien to my physical and mental constitution. Specially these team sports, which I find totally irrational and barbaric. It is not surprising why it features so prominently in our culture though. Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class has a classic analysis of this phenomenon of sports symbolising "an arrested development in man's moral nature." But I doubt many sports fans would like it. A previous post on sports - my thoughts about the Zidane documentary.

2 comments:

Madhuri said...

It is surprising to see NYTIMES cover cricket - I thought Americans are never going to warm up to that game.Is that an item targetted at the many Indians living there or NYT's bid to become a more global paper?

Alok said...

just another one of those "india the next world superpower" things that the mainstream corporate media loves so much. but yes cricket, no one in the US will have clue about what it is all about.