Post-chauvinist trends?

Few things in my cricket-watching experience have been as enthralling as the same Eden Gardens crowd, 100,000 strong, roaring in support as Shoaib Akhtar came steaming in on his debut for Kolkata against Delhi. The sight of a Pakistani fast bowler being cheered by an Indian crowd as he demolished the likes of Sehwag and Gambhir - - -

Excerpts from an article in yesterday's Sunday TOI by Sashi Taroor, who should have been the UN Secretary General, had India done a bit of pro-active lobbying. Many lessons in these for our countrymen/ women.

Muralidhar Rao

Post-Chauvinist crowds: Thanks to the mixture of nationalities in each of the IPL teams, partisanship has suddenly lost its chauvinist flavour. Few things in my cricket-watching experience have been as enthralling as the same Eden Gardens crowd, 100,000 strong, roaring in support as Shoaib Akhtar came steaming in on his debut for Kolkata against Delhi. The sight of a Pakistani fast bowler being cheered by an Indian crowd as he demolished the likes of Sehwag and Gambhir is not one we are likely to see repeated in a Test match, but it's heartwarming to see our crowds put national chauvinism aside in the interest of backing their mongrel city teams.

Cheerleaders: They were glitzy, attractive and energetic, and they brought out the worst in our society: the early lasciviousness towards the skimpily-clad boosters of the Washington Redskins; the censorious hypocrisy of those who frowned that cheerleading did not accord with Indian morals, and especially of the two cities that banned them from performing; and the alleged racism of some of the organisers towards black cheerleaders, which has now reportedly become the subject of a court action in the UK. But most fans across the country simply took them in stride. I'm one of those cricket fans who tends to think that cricket is entertainment enough, and doesn't need either short skirts or clowns on stilts to liven the proceedings, but i couldn't deny that it's fun to watch cheerleaders in the lulls between deliveries. After all, they serve the wonderful purpose of keeping the viewers' excitement up, just in case the few seconds between a six and the next delivery hung too heavy on our hands.

While we're livening up a game that was invented (at least in its organised form) in staid and decorous Victorian England, there's no shame in bringing it into the 21st century, even by borrowing techniques from the Brits' less decorous American cousins. Ashis Nandy once memorably wrote that "cricket is an Indian game accidentally invented by the British". Anyone seeing the IPL might be tempted to conclude that Twenty20 cricket is actually an American game deliberately reinvented by the Indians.

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