Ever meet a desi who claims not to like cricket and they’ll be immediately declared as non-desi by the next “patriotic” desi you happen to meet. Cricket is pretty much the only sport that desis have deep knowledge of. The fact that 9 other countries play the game, makes it an international sport (Mind you these other 9 are either little island nations or in some sort of perennial political turmoil). Usually desis can rattle off a bunch of obscure career statistics of a long retired player from one of these countries. Desis also would like to extend the concept of democracy to cricket. This is because every desi is sure of which players to pick, but with so many desis around and only eleven slots to be filled, polls remain the only peaceful solution.
To socialize with a bunch of desis, all you need to know is the cricket schedule. At a social cricket viewing session you’ll usually find the whole nine yards of desi fans. The posers will curse the game and the team from time to time while the die hard ones will watch it in revered silence, unless ofcourse a wicket falls (this event occurs roughly every 2 hours). Note that the posers will still stick around for the entire length of the game (about 9 hours). During match day, if you were to call up our non-cricket following desi friend, you can be assured that he knows who is playing whom, if not the whole scorecard details. Not surprisingly, his disinterest for the game will surface the very next day.
Cricket is one of the roadblocks for friendships between desis and white people. White people ;if at all know only the name of the game. Desis get excited when asked, “So do you play cricket?”. This question is pretty much the limit of curiosity for any white person with regards to cricket. Such instances leave desis with no choice but to huddle together.
I wonder how many countries play baseball and American football. Americans have world series in thier own country . I wonder why no one writes about these things instead . Atleast cricket is played by 16 (not 9 ) countires .
It’s the only sport where we can hold our own at the highest level. So by default …
[...] from doing the same things everywhere, like opening a grocery store, starting a motel or playing the only sport they know. Don’t be too surprised if you ever get to watch a cricket game between Italy and Ghana with [...]
[...] on the matter, but this may be due to a host of reasons including the ongoing tax season, india’s tour of new zealand, the falling India rupee or perhaps even this great recession we find ourselves [...]