Last month was wasted watching movies, sleeping late and partly due to daily drudgery I was exposed too. The first month of this calendar year was celebrated at friend’s place and goofing around the city streets. One of the highlights of my exile down-under was a chance to meet the Indian cricket team for Border-Gavaskar Trophy. This will be the last Australian tour for Sachin, Kumble, Dravid and Dada. The test matches will see huge attendance of Indian immigrants. Everyone will go to see even if someone abjures test cricket. Only thing I hate about test cricket is slow over rate, Dravid’s batting and standing in the sun.
Being a cricket-summer tickets were booked/bought well in advance. I wish this enthusiasm could extend to things beyond frivolities like cricket. The first test was scheduled for 24January and the practice session were held at the oval nets on 22-23th. Practice session gives plenty of photo opportunity. The Indian cricketers in Australia are roaming feral animals with largely no security from the mob. People clamoured to get snaps of their favourite cricketer which also meant a lot of updated Orkut albums over the weekend.
The touring teams itenary was limited to hotels, selected restraunts and pubs. There was no fan fare surrounding the Australian cricket team. Andrew Symonds-homo-erectus was spotted alone on Hindley Street in the city by our dear friend. The specie was sporting a chilled look fashionable Ts , shorts and rubber thongs. How bourgeois, care-free and no one to bother even on the city streets. But around the nets in Oval there were over a hundred crazed Indian fans dying to get a snap with Tendlya, Dada or Kumble-Pathan. This behavior could have been a puzzling glimpse for the local aussie. That is normal for the Australian cricket team because this form of sport has limited following in the country. Indians are raving mad about cricket. Cricket
enjoy high priority in media coverage and the Board of Cricket Council India is a wealthy body.
Australians embraces all sports even kayaking is at par with cricket. Women’ s hockey final can has higher viewership than friday night movie. Adelaide hosts sporting events like the Clipsal V8 racing, Melbourne Cup Horse race and the Cycling tour Down under. Cycling is huge in Australia which I find very strange. Men in tights speeding on rail-thin steel pipes never got my adrenaline going. Perhaps that’s makes me another ignorant Indian. Ignorant about sports, another pot-bellied brown folk, another bureaucrat whose notion of sport and recreation lies largely in realms of bat & ball.
We have this inability to become a ‘sports-conscious nation’ even after 60 years of independence. And India missed the chance in 1982 Asian Games and, with no vision, India is set to repeat the mistake in 2010 in my backyard when Delhi hosts the Commonwealth Games.
And yes I have always been a part of the dejected billion-plus-Indians-and-yet-no-Olympic-gold-medal crib brigade. I am living down under all these convincing figures make me envy the aussie sporting success. At the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, Australia won 27 medals and in 1996 in Atlanta it was 41. In 1999, the year before the Sydney Olympics, Australia had another outstanding year in international sport, winning 25 individual world championships and 15 world team championships, with most of these victories not even in the Olympic sports. In 2000 Olympics were held in Sydney and there Aussies bagged 58 medals with 16 gold which is good for a country with miniscule population. Australians have healthy-wholesome succesful image of their country.
The touring teams itenary was limited to hotels, selected restraunts and pubs. There was no fan fare surrounding the Australian cricket team. Andrew Symonds-homo-erectus was spotted alone on Hindley Street in the city by our dear friend. The specie was sporting a chilled look fashionable Ts , shorts and rubber thongs. How bourgeois, care-free and no one to bother even on the city streets. But around the nets in Oval there were over a hundred crazed Indian fans dying to get a snap with Tendlya, Dada or Kumble-Pathan. This behavior could have been a puzzling glimpse for the local aussie. That is normal for the Australian cricket team because this form of sport has limited following in the country. Indians are raving mad about cricket. Cricket
enjoy high priority in media coverage and the Board of Cricket Council India is a wealthy body.
Australians embraces all sports even kayaking is at par with cricket. Women’ s hockey final can has higher viewership than friday night movie. Adelaide hosts sporting events like the Clipsal V8 racing, Melbourne Cup Horse race and the Cycling tour Down under. Cycling is huge in Australia which I find very strange. Men in tights speeding on rail-thin steel pipes never got my adrenaline going. Perhaps that’s makes me another ignorant Indian. Ignorant about sports, another pot-bellied brown folk, another bureaucrat whose notion of sport and recreation lies largely in realms of bat & ball.
We have this inability to become a ‘sports-conscious nation’ even after 60 years of independence. And India missed the chance in 1982 Asian Games and, with no vision, India is set to repeat the mistake in 2010 in my backyard when Delhi hosts the Commonwealth Games.
And yes I have always been a part of the dejected billion-plus-Indians-and-yet-no-Olympic-gold-medal crib brigade. I am living down under all these convincing figures make me envy the aussie sporting success. At the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, Australia won 27 medals and in 1996 in Atlanta it was 41. In 1999, the year before the Sydney Olympics, Australia had another outstanding year in international sport, winning 25 individual world championships and 15 world team championships, with most of these victories not even in the Olympic sports. In 2000 Olympics were held in Sydney and there Aussies bagged 58 medals with 16 gold which is good for a country with miniscule population. Australians have healthy-wholesome succesful image of their country.
