I don't yet know enough to recognize a eulogy when I hear one. His lament, and the place from which it comes, are beyond me. The entire exchange lasts a minute or two. "There is a certain amount of innocence here," he tells us, "which I think India has lost." This pure love for cricket transports him to his past. He's a former Indian cricket player turned broadcaster, Sanjay Manjrekar, and he's been captivated by Bangladesh's reaction to this World Cup opening in its capital. I'm sitting with Sambit, and a guy comes up to chat. One thing did happen - a pressbox conversation during the game that will eat at me for the next week. When the books are closed and the conversations about culture and history are over, I want to sit in a stadium and have the game explain itself to me. There's a mystic place beyond the assignment. I've flown halfway around the planet, and I'm after more than an intellectual understanding of why cricket matters. Maybe it's because I don't know the rules, or because the scene in the street was exponentially more dramatic than the one in the stands, but the game itself seems anticlimactic.
India wins, and it's a little boring, frankly. Sehwag finally gets out with 175, an incredible total. The cricket-mad Bangladeshi crowd oohs and ahs, just happy to be seeing the game in person. Fans call Sehwag the "Butcher of Najafgarh." He puts on a show. The dude has Popeye arms, and he's pounding the thing all over the yard. It's like watching Mark McGwire take batting practice. The fans rise to their feet as he walks off. Then, before I know it, he's out, finished for the day. I know Tendulkar is a star, so I focus on him. He scores only 28, leaving Indian fans disappointed and our writer confused. This is my first day in the world of cricket.Īlmost as soon as it begins, Sachin's at-bat in Bangladesh ends. Other than that, Auburn-Alabama is just like India-Pakistan. My first thought: It's like India-Pakistan in cricket.Įxcept, you know, for the four wars since 1947 and the constant threat of nuclear holocaust. A fan just poisoned two 130-year-old oak trees. This is perhaps America's most intense rivalry. Only, Sambit has never heard of Auburn, or Alabama, doesn't know that they play college football, or that they are rivals. I'm a Southern boy, and I tend to believe that SEC football is the most important thing in the world. Back home, an Alabama fan had killed the trees at Toomer's Corner, and I was trying to explain the significance to him. If you are looking for someone with the opposite of my cricket knowledge, he's it. Sambit Bal, the editor of ESPNcricinfo, sits next to me. My first day in Bangladesh, I'm sitting in the press box considering the journey ahead. There seemed something pure and savage that was missing from the glossy sports I follow at home. Pakistan's coach allegedly murdered after upset defeat. It seemed so mysterious: a game with strange rules, and stranger vocabulary, one that can last for days, captivating billions but meriting only an inch or two in the papers at home. (Turns out, according to my book, it's all three.)Ĭricket, like India, had long intrigued me from afar. Is it the stumps on either end of that manicured area? Is it the manicured area in the center of the field?
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Go to ESPNcricinfo's World Cup page for full coverage.Īt the moment, I'm too busy trying to figure out the definition of a wicket. The winner of that match advances to the final to face Sri Lanka, which defeated New Zealand. The India-Pakistan semifinal match is Wednesday at 5 a.m. He is the greatest cricketer in the world. Billboards with Sachin's photo blanket India's cities every other commercial on television features his face.
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He's so famous that people who worked for him are famous: a well-known Bollywood movie character is based on his first agent, Mark Mascarenhas, who died in a car wreck. Tendulkar is probably the most famous man in India. I don't realize that Sachin Tendulkar is likely playing in his final World Cup, still searching for his first title. I don't understand that the sport itself is at a crossroads, in crisis even. How tremendous? The Hindustan Times' logo for their cup coverage says, every day, in enormous letters: A Billion Dreams 28 years of yearning. I came with a copy of "Cricket for Dummies." The 2011 Cricket World Cup starts tomorrow, India at Bangladesh, and I know nothing about the sport, not even about the tremendous pressure on the Indian National Cricket team to win its second World Cup after a three-decade drought. How could it? Just a few hours ago, on a mid-February morning, I landed in Dhaka. You must understand India to understand Sachin, but you must understand Sachin to understand India.
Sachin is both the riddle and the answer. He blends athletics and celebrity, transcending both. A sportsman and a pitchman and an icon - Sachin Tendulkar might be the most famous Indian alive.