Tuesday 12 March 2013

Superstition Vs Sunburn..


So this is for all my friends who have played cricket, and i'm not just tallking about competitive cricket, but any cricket : gully, street, school playground, apartment balcony, Lord's, wherever. All of you will know exactly what im talking about. Its about our little, or not so little, superstitions within the game.

Now dont confuse these with routines. Putting on your left pad first, tying your laces a certain way, or praying before hitting the field are all more routines than anything,even if they do have a flavour of superstition about them. No, what im talking about is more sporadic, and yet something that is seen very uniformly across teams and i suspect across cultures as well.

The reason i got to writing this is that we were very recently playing a match in which something curious happened. Our openers were batting, and the rest of the team was sitting in the spot on the ground which we had occupied the match before as well. Incidentally, the match before was a cakewalk for us, and we were carrying in confidence from that encounter. As the sun began to beat down on us, about half the team moved to a shadier location, and the rest stayed close to their kit bags. Around this time things started going downhill in our chase. what should have been a regulation chase, turned out to be a bit more 'interesting'. Our middle order got some exercise they were not expecting, and our short tail had to pad-up in a bit of a hurry.Although we got over the line, we had our hearts in our mouths for a bit. somewhere in between, our team management called us all to sit together, in the sunny spot, and we fell in without question. Nobody said it, but everyone was thinking, "shouldnt have gotten up in the first place!" Whats a little sun burn when compared to a tension free commanding win eh?

So im asking all of you; my 'cricketer ' friends, who hasn't experienced this? Who hasn't been glued to their seats during a budding partnership? Who hasn't stopped themselves from going to the bathroom even when they were bursting, just to make sure they are not d reason our team didn't get the win? Who wants to make sure that they do everything right, even the silly things, to feel the joy and relief in the end?

Like i said, if you are a cricketer, you know what im talking about..and you are smiling right now, and thinking about the time you chose superstition over a sunburn..

3 comments:

  1. Reading your article reminded me an
    incident where as a cricket fan I followed superstition.

    Shane Watson's first test century --> I went to fox studios (next to SCG)- Sydney to watch a movie, got the ticket and was waiting out side the theater watching Aus vs Pak test match live in giant screen, every now and then if i move around there were play and misses from watson. I decided not to move and continued watching standing at one corner, he reached nineties and my movie show was started, being a fan of watto and superstitious about me moving around may cause watson's wicket, I had to miss the show and stand in the beating sun (AUS summer) for almost 3 hours to watch his maiden test century. Finally he reached to 100 after a pak fielder dropped a sitter at 99.

    I returned home missing the movie but with the satisfaction of Watto's century.

    Keep blogging :)

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    1. Wow..ur little anecdote is a blog in itself!:-)
      Happy flogging..

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