PROLOGUE: Dipen's Take

This blog is conceptualized by two ‘common’ Indians. Common though for only one reason, because they share a thing with most other Indian males…. a fascination for CRICKET (If you put ‘ers’ after cricket, you might include females as well). Being childhood friends, it was this game that carried their friendship forward through their early years. It gave them new friends to play with, new challenges to conquer on the playing field and new rivals to beat. It gave them reason to talk when they had nothing else to say. Off-field also, they became ardent followers of cricket, and competitors in their own right…. Who can devour more stats……. Who was able to watch more overs in the last match.

Life continued as such for years, until they became adolescents, when they stumbled upon a common Indian problem that accompanied growing up…..studies and career. The free evenings and mornings gradually disappeared. Friends and rivals moved away. As a matter of fact, these boys’ homes also became farther than they used to be. Limited by time and pressured by other engagements, the passion for cricket started diluting………and before they could realize it, Alas! ‘The Golden Period’ had suddenly ended.

The two gentlemen have now grown from young school toddlers to adults…… in pursuit of a dream future. The ‘players’ in them have become more or less sedentary, but the ‘follower’ genes are still active. Maybe the process of dilution will continue further…but deep down, the spark will always exist, waiting for moments to ignite into a fire.

‘The Cricket Diaries’ is the pitch where these two ordinary gentlemen will play through words, & pen down their thoughts about this ‘extra-ordinary’ game, which has been a prominent part of their lives. These thoughts will be of all kinds, from the silliest to the most esoteric….those that suddenly strike them when they think cricket!!!.......those that have accumulated over the years they have spent playing & following the game, and much more.

It will have cricket-involving incidents from their lives, their memories of the past matches, their views on the present happenings, their takes on changes in cricket, their expectations from the future…… practically everything they feel about the cricketing world that is worth writing down. It will also look at the larger picture, i.e., the impact of cricket on Indians, on Indian economy, on our international relations and on other sports, loopholes in the Indian cricket system, relations between various cricket boards, steps to be taken to popularize cricket in the west etc. etc. These posts will all be randomly organized, rollicking between different time-zones, from the distant past to the ultimate future.

Having presented the Third person view, from now on THEY will become WE, THEIRS will become OURS & THEY will become US.
The two of us, dipen007(dipen) & gravity(harshal) dedicate this DIARY to all cricket fanatics, especially fellow ‘common’ INDIANS.

TO THE BLUE BILLION..................…..CHEERS

“India doesn’t need cricket as much as cricket needs India.”

For now, the weather is bright and clear!!!