Some striking similarities from the Gali (Street) Cricket with the IPL
- Gali Cricket: The teams are a conglomeration of people form your own ‘ilaka’ and various other colonies. Often your own team players join the opponent teams in order to keep the game going.
- Older generation often discourages the idea of playing on streets. If in case they enter it, the pace and aggressiveness of the game is even more discouraging for them.
- ‘Attention Seeking’ is the very foundation of ‘gali’ cricket. In short, public attention of any sorts is welcome. No matter, if you have to break glasses or shout slogans
- Survival of the fittest. The mightier the better.
- Often parents have to interfere to settle the game which was started on the field.
- Winning is a part of the game but, it is hard to digest a defeat. So, you settle with a battle.
- Bully your opponent if you find yourself in tough times. It often works, seldom backfires.
- The bigger bully ends up winning the tiff despite of a defeat.
- Tears/ abuses anything and everything is un-censored.
- Acceptance of your getting ‘out’ never comes easy. Umpire’s decision is always doubtful and most of the times challenged.
- As it is in the, good spirit of the game, the players themselves guide/ help the umpires in making the final decision.
- Due to time constraints and fun factor the number of overs is always lesser than the usual.
- The commentators (actor turned presenters in this case) are people who don’t want to play, but want to talk incessantly without making sense. They are there to prove their PR skills.
- Last but not the least: Both IPL and Gali Crickets are a fantastic source of entertainment for the audience
exception analogy…too good Riddhi!!
that dig on Ganguly is my personal fav 😀
The synthesis is perfect … my only doubt is that Mr. Lalit Modi and others involved in the functioning of the IPL, wouldn’t differ too much with your thinking though. They promote IPL as just a form of cricket, an exhilarating hotch-potch, purely for the sake of entertainment.
Plus, technically the foreign element cannot be dug at, because they have been brought in under the garb of honing the talents of the Indian inexperienced players. So again, we have to draw a blank.
The slap was a little too harsh, but sledging is very much a part of cricket these days. Australians excel at it, and therefore to ‘beat’ the champs, all players have started following it… Like there was a pretty ugly spat between Tendulkar and Nasser Hussain once, and I once remember seeing Dravid in a war of words.
What I am trying to say is that IPL and ICl both need to be seen as forms of prime time entertainment. Like instead of watching a boring Paanchvi Paas, it’s as good as watching the IPL. And I can tell you for one, these transitions always look bloated and crazy — like I’m sure when fifty overs took over from test, there must have been similar dissent. So they started the World Cup concept, borrowed it from football, as that was supposed to be more entertaining and the World Cup was basically a marketing fixture! Then it stuck on … Like don’t be too surprised, if 30 years down the line we have a ten-ten fixture!
But you wrote it very well … the irony was apt and well-intended!
why the hell did I give a lecture here? What’s wrong with me?
Great thinking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!