“Hattrick” is an excellent film with an excellent theme. In that movie, Nana Patekar has played the role of a cricket hating doctor whose life is changed by the game. Wow! What a way to change people!! And not only cricket, even hard liquor transform people. Kerala has topped in average liquor consumption, a clear indication that more educated people drink more. Well that should give clues to some ardent devotees of Bacchus to produce any number of films on how alcohol changed their lives.

Cricket is the best thing that happened to this country. And not to have telecast some recent matches is a blot on this nation; an affront to the game. If football and fish prices are important to the Bengalis and Malayalis, cricket match scores are the very air that every Indian breathes. And if some had the audacity to come in the way of its telecast it could be termed the most undemocratic cut of all.

Airtel has promised to keep everyone abreast of every run. Now teenagers like Anita, Balu and Lalu will fill the pockets of Airtel though the pockets of their parents will be thinned to that extent. Airtel people love cricket. They love money too. How nice cricket is becoming commercial and Indian. It richly fills the pockets of the cricketers who would have otherwise remained terribly unemployed.

But there are other sections which want to get rich by hard work. No one tells them that hard work is out of fashion these days. Airtel and Kaun Banega Crorepati provides you excellent opportunities to amass riches by simply answering a few questions. If still you fail, why not buy a few lottery tickets?

Cricket matches, like our television serials, should be made to last longer. Why not a match that goes on a month? Five days of this thrilling game only whets one's appetite for more. May be, the 11 players might get exhausted by playing longer. The remedy lies in increasing the strength of the team. In a country like India with a billion people and more, the team of eleven should be considered an anachronism. Further this is a source of employment for those who might have otherwise been idle. Matches may render onlookers idle but the players will brave the heat and cold and remain on the crease.

Lately cricket has come to be reckoned as the acid test of patriotism. Justifiably so. It certainly adds to the nation's pride, nay people's patriotic spirit. Parties like BJP should even run a campaign to promote the game because defeating Pakistan on the cricket ground is a better way of humiliating that arrogant neighbour than by other tricks like singing national anthem, parading heavy guns and giant rockets on Republic Days. Take away all the guns from our soldiers, give them shining cricket balls and imported bats, train them and send them in teams to Pakistan.

And when the Indian teams win matches (there is a strong likelihood of that, soldiers being of better build than ordinary cricketers) hell will break loose. The audience will themselves set fire to stadia etc. Why the RAW has not thought of such a strategy, is a mystery.

Every village should have half a dozen cricket fieldsalmost on the lines of having a school every second kilometer. If someone argues that it will reduce the area under food grains, let us remind ourselves that man does not live by bread alone. Cricket is the life blood of this nation and especially of the youth. Cricket builds up personality. Youths develop ambitions to travel by fabulous cars, dine in big restaurants and travel abroad. If parents are made to shell out money, that is only a small price for strengthening glamour and ambition in children. This will augment commercial activity. See the rustic energy that seems to ooze from Jat blood Kapildev.

Cricket brings relaxation from tension and the workers watching cricket are unlikely to organize bandhs and hartals. Cricket brings also a certain bonhomie even between enemies working in the same office. Mr X and Mr Y may be bitter enemies but when Gavaskar strikes a sixer against Pakistani bowlers, they will embrace each other like bosom friends.

You will find that on days when players in the field, the employees usually remain outside office resulting in power saving. If all the saving thus resulting from non use of electricity in our government offices is calculated, it will even be an argument for shutting them down permanently. Let cricket be a daily routine and let this land learn to rejoice daily. Let all gloom depart. We are getting too growth oriented and materialistic and cricket would infuse some new spirit.

The money paid to cricketers is found insufficient to maintain their life style. If my memory is correct, some of our cricketers had been accused of smuggling and shop lifting abroad. This shows what we pay them is not enough. If a few farmers commit suicide that is not going to affect the destiny of this nation but what a shame it will be if a cricketer commits suicide because he is not able to afford a BMW or marry the best actress of the country.

The world of cricket presents brilliant themes for the cinema. No one has tried to capture the romantic story of a cricketer falling in love with a famous film star and then the actress tragically leaving him when he failed to hit a century in a match! There could be so many serials perhaps featuring the players themselves.

But wait. I read in a recent article that Nana Patekar has played the role of a cricket hating doctor whose life is changed by the game in a film titled “Hattrick.” And privately the article admits that the hero is a cricket lover in real life. Well that should give clues to some ardent devotees of Bacchus to produce any number of films on how alcohol changed their lives.

I am still looking forward to an imaginative painter who will accommodate a cricket bat in the hands of Bharatmata. You may object saying mothers don't play cricket. Then it is high time to introduce mothers' cricket as well. And a Mothers Cricket Day to be observed with due solemnitypoliticians like Jayalalita and Rabri Devi should be glad to associate with such days. And no one should have any pangs of conscience in inviting these women if they had not seen a cricket ball at close quarters, they might have given birth to cricket players…What I mean is everyone some way or the other is connected to cricket.

Yet some people have the temerity to ask what is so thrilling about cricket. Any body can hit a ball with a bat and what is heroic about it, they lament…”It is all a fluke-- this sixer or that beautiful catch!!” What can be more poetic than the way a ball travels once hit by the strong bat! On a sunny day, what can you do better than watching men in sparkling white hitting balls high into the sky and other men dashing in to have catches. How nice for children and adults to munch popcorns forgetful of office work and homework…Then the next day, reading the news paper full of those pictures and run-by- run accounts. Very often our scribes go musical over the game, entertaining the reader..

Even the media is becoming wiser. Newspapers are good at “giving to people what they want.” Sachin or Ganguli having a new hairstyle hits headlines relegating to the background even earthquakes and train accidents. These journalists know that people want to read only about cricket. More people have a concern for these men with the ball, than they have for acts of God. Who is certain about the authorship of an earthquake? Whose earth is it anyway?

Cricket commentary is something I like to listen to. It is so soothing though many sticking their ears to radio or television sets may be unfamiliar with the English or with the terms used. The commentaries are useful in promoting English, especially the indigenous variety.

The Samajvadi party's suggestion that Amitabh contest for presidentship of the country should be considered an affront to prominent cricketers who might excel him in popularity charts. And what magnanimity on his part to admit that he is not fit to be a candidate. Certainly our country demonstrates for once that we have humble people in our midst.

What is more, how can a political party decide whether the people are for a boorish male actor or a sublime actress? Actresses are more photogenic and beauty should be an added qualification, even if presidents are accused of being rubber stamps. It is high time we laid down the parameters for presidency. The incumbent's hair style should not matter muchwhom would the people choose, that is the issue. Will a fast bowler or is it an opening batsman that will sway votes? If by any quirk of fate he does not happen to be a playing cricketer, should he or she be tested for his knowledge of cricket?

My friend Rama Iyer says that ancient Indians played cricket along the shores of the Ganges of course--when the Whites of the west were wandering through jungles as barbarians. The Harappan walls, dug up during investigations, were found to contain crude pictures of bats and balls and even stumps, according to this cricket lover.