Rainman talks Cricket

It wasn't hubris. It was never arrogance. It was just self-belief. Extreme self-belief that eventually proved to be his undoing. Fourteen months ago, I was struck by a thought that really gripped me, so much that I wanted to write a book on it. My lofty ambitions were grounded by events of the following months where writing a book became the last of my priorities. But the thought never left me and in those grim days too, I kept engaging with it. At the heart of it was a simple question - How does an athlete come to know or accept that his time with the sport is over? How do these individuals with immense self-belief and who are massively motivated and driven accept that their best days are behind them? The more I thought the more I felt that it's bound to be a deeply emotional decision for an athlete. In fact, it’s possibly the most emotional that gives them many sleepless nights. After all, these are people who pretty much give their entire growing up years to a ...

There is little doubt that Virat Kohli is special. And comparisons of Virat with Sachin Tendulkar are pointless. But there is something that I want to compare today between the two – their fandom. And in trying to do that, I want to trace the change in the way cricket is consumed and how that has impacted its relationship with its fans, especially in Sachin and Virat’s country. To do that I will step back a bit and talk a bit about something that made Sachin ‘The God’ that he went on to become in the 90s. A cricket fan in the Sachin era (the ’90s) was characterized by an itch. This itch kept him distracted. This itch kept him motivated to get past his day. This itch also got him in trouble. This itch was to watch the game somehow. And if not able to watch, this itch came out in the form of those three beautiful words – score kya hua ? The relief of getting to watch cricket in the Sachin era was unmatchable. It was a festival of sorts to watch India play then, a fes...