The newest meme in the desi blogosphere – the one’s that only the hardcore cricket fans know about – is the one that Prem Panicker is guilty of starting. Though I am usually guilty of ignoring memes, I really have to take this one up. Not only because of the fact that the meme originated from someone that I look up to, but also because the theme is something that is close to my heart.

My earliest memories of cricket are actually of my mom’s faux commentary in Tamizh – “Kapil Dev vegama bowling pottanaa…” (When Kapil Dev bowled fast), “Gavaskar ball-a balama adichan” (Gavaskar hit the ball very hard), “ball nera boundary kku pochu” (The ball went straight to the boundary) – while feeding me. The description of the ball traveling to the boundary usually coincided with a handful of rice going from the bowl into my mouth. Study time was then also cricket time with mom holding my hand and tracing the path of the ball like the shape of the alphabets accompanied by her commentary. Thus, cricket ensured that I, as a pre-schooler, ate my food and learnt to write with minimum fuss and soon Srikkanth, Gavaskar and Kapil Dev became my generic names for cricketers.

However while the introduction to the game started early enough, I don’t have any memories of watching actual games then. While I don’t remember watching the World Cup win of ’83 or the WCC win of ’85, I do remember watching the now famous Audi driven around the MCG with every member of the squad in or on it in the TV news clippings.

My first memories of watching an actual game (on TV) is quite fittingly a gripping test match played in Chennai – The Tied Test. I think the excitement of watching the final day’s play with all its turning points, along with a bunch of rabid and yet intelligent fans from the extended family, cemented my interest in the game. Soon I even started having rather vivid cricket dreams – of playing cricket with the likes of Kapil Dev bowling to me on our apartment terrace, with a crocodile infested nook where the forward short leg would normally be (Don’t ask!).

I started reading about cricket voraciously too. I devoured my cousin’s collection of Sportstars repeatedly every evening. I literally believed every word that was written there about Viv Richards’ murderous 110 at St. Johns during England’s ill-fated ’85-86 tour and got into fights after telling people that 12 runs each were given for at least 2 of the 7 sixes that Richards hit that day. I also found my cousin’s hidden copy of a 1983 English season yearbook (including the World Cup) released by Wills, hidden behind his Sportstars. The book interestingly gave me my first look at a nudie pic – a topless woman waving to the cameras from top of a chimney, from where she was watching a county (or was it a World Cup) game.

Around this time I started watching cricket on TV like a maniac. The West Indies tour of India in 1987-88 and the battering India took from the hands of the likes of Pat Patterson and Ian Bishop is fresh, and the heartbreak that was the ’87 World Cup. After Star TV and Prime Sports entered our house around the same time as the ’92 World Cup, there was an hour to be spent every day watching re-runs of the World Cup games, most of which I had seen on live TV too. In the midst of all this, I never once watched a game live at the stadium, at least not until much much later – the 2001 Chennai Test against the Australia!

Since my initiation, I have grown up to be this guy whose first thought, on seeing open spaces, is to plan where the stumps and the boundaries would be. While she hasn’t verbalized it, my mom probably blames herself for it. All my years in school, barring a few months between my 9^th and the 10^th standards (when I was grudgingly allowed to join a coaching program, she relentlessly made efforts to correct her “mistake”. She tried to put one impediment after the other – taking me to work with her during vacations, arranging for violin lessons thrice a week at home in the evening when the other kids were playing. But in spite of all this, I have stayed in love with the game. Not an hour passes without cricket being on my mind, even if it is a fleeting thought.

As most readers know, digression and verbosity are inbuilt features on this blog, but not today. Lunch beckons now. Nevertheless, while I am gone, you can tell us all how your cricket story began. Comments are open. So, will you?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 5:07 am and is filed under Cricket, India, Life, Personal, madras, sports.