A Bicycle Repairer's Shirt Philosophy !

A Bicycle Repairer's take on why Cricketers do what they do !

My Father completed 76 years in June. He wasn't lucky enough to be well educated and retired from his job of repairing bicycles about 13 years ago after some fervent persuasion.

He loves to watch Cricket, like 91.6% of Indians do. He believes Sachin Tendulkar is a Great Player. He knows that Anil Kumble hails from Kumble, a small town on our way from Kochi to Mangalore. Dravid, Ganguly and Sehwag too are his favorites. During the last IPL he had developed a special liking for Yusuf Pathan and Robin Uthappa.

Every white player is a foreigner for him and every black, an African. He hates Pakistan simply because he doesn't have anything or anyone else to hate. He has a tendency to believe Mpofu, Zimbabwe and Mbangwa are some animals from the African continent, but refuses to buy the fact that Cricket is an insect !

When India bat, he keeps asking when is 'That Giant' coming to bat. Giant is Yusuf Pathan for him. He calls Uthappa 'Onion Dosa'. His nickname for Dravid is 'Humble boy'. Kumble is 'Our boy'. Sachin is 'Short boy'. Yuveraj is 'Handsome boy'. But Sehwag has the best nick name, 'Waag'. That is Tiger in our language, Konkani.

He is very fond of Srisanth because he is from our neighborhood. He even went in search of Srisanth's house and returned disappointed because Sri had moved to a different locality. But Srisanth still is a favorite and is called, "Thammanam Express"

Though he does manage to read sports headlines on Indian Express, he waits for the Kannada daily, Udayavani to arrive by post to get 'Authentic' information on everything. And he very faithfully does the 'Breaking News' to me and my mother that India went on to win the match; 3 days after the match.

Virendar Sehwag's quotes after the Randiv no-ball was a hot topic for him while the whole world was busy with some other no-balls bowled elsewhere. He is talking of spot-fixing these days and wants to know how can someone pay so much of money just to bowl a no-ball.

His words have left me shaken, "Don't you think there is a danger of a lot of unscrupulous characters choosing to play Cricket just to be rich in quick time ? There is no way they are going to monitor every ball that is going to be bowled, is there ?". Isn't that scary ?

My father has as much regard for Cricket history as Sehwag has. He just loves to watch Cricket. The bat hitting the ball or the stumps going cartwheeling or the catches being pouched.

The hook or the upper cut look the same to him. He isn't bothered about which way the ball swung as long as the stumps get dislodged when 'Foreigners' or Pakistan bat. Sri Lanka are not an honest team as we believed them to be; he found this out thanks to Udayavani.

He even pronounced a special punishment to Randiv. Someone should bowl a 'no-ball' when Randiv is on 99 and see to it that he misses century. Will Randiv ever manage to reach thus far ? Don't bother !

Third Man is a Man. What is he doing on Cricket field ? And how different is he from Third Umpire ? How does Ganguly's Off-side become On-side for Dravid ? On the field, they are there to your left or right, Right ? So why don't they simply call left side or right side ?

Square leg, fine leg, mid on and mid off are some stupid inanities the commentary people utter. There is a sinister design to all this. They all want to confuse Indian players, nothing more nothing less ! Black, white and brown; all the Umpires are biased and want to declare Sachin out LBW. The damned TV channels show those blue line just to confuse Umpires.

Every other country and all Pakistanis and foreigners are jealous of Indians because India have Sachin Tendulkar and Dr. Vijay Mallya and Mukesh Ambani are very rich. Everyone wants to defeat India by all kind of foul means.

In the background of this knowledge, he joined me to watch the CLT-20 match between Bangalore and Guyana last night. The Bangalore team is owned by one of our own community, Dr. Vijay Mallya. That is an added qualification to root for RCB.

Bored by the poor quality of Cricket by Ramnaresh Sarwan's insipid team, I flipped channels to watch England - Pakistan ODI. What my father noticed during a short period had me stumped. It never occurred to me, he could come out with such wisdom.

After watching the match for about 4 overs, he queried innocently: "Everyone in the 'Foreign' team is 'England' and Pakistan team has K Akmal, Akhter, Umar and many others. Why is that ?". I showed him the English players too had their names lower down on their shirts and said, "England have their country name at the top and player name at the bottom".

My Class 8 learned father persisted with, "But there is no Pakistan on those green shirts; only player names. Why is it ?". Before retiring to his room for the night, he gave a parting shot, "Do you think the 'Foreigners' have more respect for England than the Green Grasshoppers have for Pakistan ? Is it why these guys are sold so easily ?"