Seasons

Ain't nobody got time for that

It feels convenient to bring this up while melting under the Chennai sun, but I really love winters. Always have. Growing up in Delhi, winters were a welcome reprieve from the rest of the year. And summers were basically bare-knuckle brawls with the sun itself. Going two weeks without a sunburn or a migraine was a triumph.

The real joy would start setting around mid-October. Exams done, a new term on the horizon, and the first whispers of winter in the air. The floating scent of wild sugarcane flowers would signal the change of guard. Over the next few weeks, the clothes, the feel of a football, even the taste of warm Horlicks, everything changed.

In my Bengali home, October also marked the arrival of Durga Pujo, the starting point for the festive season that ran till Lohri. It was just a wonderful period. For a precious sliver of time every year, Delhi is beautifully cold. Mist clings to mornings, and evenings light up into city-wide carnivals under a canopy of fog and stars. But with so much happening, winters pass by a bit too soon. One moment I’d be wrapped in a quilt, feeling its warmth massage me to sleep, and by the time I’ve exhaled, I’m squinting from sharp sunlight. Soon enough, I’d start missing one winter and pine for the next.

I have spent the last eight years in Chennai. Here, winter is a rumour, and Santa Claus himself comes in a Malibu shirt and chequered boxers. Between Calcutta, Delhi, and this sun-drenched sprawl, I’ve never truly known what it is like to live in a perpetually cold place. I wonder if I’d still hold the soft spot for winters if I did. In a place like Oslo or Chicago, I suspect the charm of woollens would vanish faster than a snowflake on a dosa griddle.

I’m feeling a bit of that with World Cups and cricket these days.

Have you noticed how it’s been awfully quiet for an India vs Pakistan weekend? Almost eerie. At other times, there is a palpable anticipation in the air, newsrooms are buzzing, and social media frothing with passionate, often nasty, declarations of glory. There is a distinct lack of fizz this time, as if someone replaced a pitcher of Scottish beer with a cup of chamomile tea. Even the broadcasters, who love to paint every game as some gladiatorial duel, have been relatively sedate. Over the last few weeks, I have seen just one ad, and that too is a friendly jab about India’s excellent record against Pakistan at World Cups.

Maybe it’s fatigue. It’s been barely seven months since a draining ODI World Cup, less than two years since the last T20 World Cup. Four World Cups in three years, all but tripping over each other. Add the biennial World Test Championship finals to this, and we have a tangled mess of a timeline. Did Netherlands stun South Africa in the T20 or ODI World Cup? Both? These things are fast becoming muted reruns of the same show.

World Cups, by nature even if not by design, are supposed to be the grandest stages for players and teams. Performances here are meant to be career-defining, etched in stone. Yuvraj Singh, a phenomenal cricketer every day of the week, becomes a Mt. Rushmore candidate when you consider his World Cup heroics. But even he played in five World Cups within a four-year window. We remember two, maybe three, at most.

Here's one hilarious punchline: every time Pakistan shows promise at a World Cup, the ghosts of '92 come marching out. 1992 remains their zenith, the year they got to hold the coveted crown. And it is to their great sadness that they haven’t been able to match the feat since. Except they have. The 2009 T20 World Cup trophy sits quietly in their cabinet, a championship they themselves need to be reminded of.

The other reason for the general apathy is that this T20 World Cup, co-hosted by the USA and the West Indies, has been a bit, umm, odd. For months, there has been a curated placement of this tournament as 21st century cricket's grand arrival in the land of baseball and hot dogs. In many ways, the USA is the final frontier for cricket, the last major market to win over. So, how's it going? Let's just say the tumbleweeds are rolling harder than the crowds.

“The local Popsicle festival has a bigger presence on the streets than this World Cup.” - Andy Bull in this excellent piece.

You walk past the stadium, and you wouldn't even know there's a global tournament happening unless you peeked inside.

American cricket is trying, though. Major League Cricket, bankrolled by tech titans with dollar signs in their eyes, launched with six teams – three of them basically sister, or child, franchises of IPL teams. Their first season was played last year, entirely in Texas, to crowds that were mostly South Asian immigrants with a deep love for a sport they didn’t get to engage with in their adopted land. It will get better.

But the USA leg of this World Cup, in theory, should've been a masterpiece. A marriage of American know-how in infrastructure with the ICC's bottomless well of expendable cash. They even had a story to tell – the first ever international match was played in New York, between the USA and Canada in 1844. Cricket was big here once, until the Civil War rolled in and baseball became the easier game to set up in a dusty field. Plus, with a massive subcontinental fanbase within reach, the ICC could’ve laid the foundation stone for a cricket hub.

Instead, they strutted in, chests puffed, expecting a ticker-tape parade and a roaring crowd on the streets. They have found out, rather quickly, that the streets don’ give a fuck.

The pitches are a disgrace, the stadiums half-done, and the timings an insult to anyone with a day job. Weekday mornings for Sri Lanka vs Papua New Guinea? Who exactly are they expecting to show up, apart from a few diehard fans and a flock of confused pigeons? Empty stands are becoming a familiar sight. Turns out, you can only drag so many people across continents for a World Cup every year. A poster with Virat Kohli's face isn't exactly a source of light, and fans aren't moths. Who knew?

Tonight’s episode of the Coke Studio Derby will be played at the new Nassau County Stadium in New York. It's a pop-up stadium, with stands put together and pushed into slots like structures on a lego board. And it costs an absolute fortune to get in.

Peter Della Penna, a reporter painstakingly wading through the chaos, has been speaking to some particularly disgruntled fans. Jagan Vinayagam, 48, paid $350 for a “premium” India vs Ireland ticket, hoping to catch some of his favourites from up close. When he reached the Nassau County Stadium, he found his seat on the last row of the side stand, about a 100 yards away from the pitch, with the players looking like pepper pellets moving about on a grassy plate. The ICC website coughed up some more tickets yesterday, and the minimum prices are as high as $300. On reselling websites, tickets for tonight’s game reached $5000. These New York nosebleeds cost more than tickets to the finals of the last two World Cups.

Crowds. Source: Twitter

The most attended World Cup game, until Friday evening, was Nepal vs Oman with 7200 folks in the stadium. If this cricket World Cup carries even faint contours of a truly global event, for once, it is down to Nepal, Oman, Uganda, Papua New Guinea, and their ilk. These teams are playing out of their skins, have a travelling support that can be heard through streaming platforms, and most importantly, take cricket’s gaze out of the same, boring menu card into the open fields.

The Netherlands just kicked off their campaign last night, almost beating South Africa, again. Uganda already have a win under their belts, as do Canada, who stunned test-playing Ireland. Even Oman made Australia sweat. Yet, the number of associate-nation players sprinkled across the T20 leagues tells you we still don't get it. But we will. Probably the hard way, when some unfancied team humbles a big name and reaches a stage they weren't supposed to see. Think Morocco at the last FIFA Men’s World Cup, or, to stretch really long back, teams like Senegal, South Korea, and Ghana. Pure magic.

Speaking of magic, the USA themselves have been a revelation. Beating Canada was expected, but dominating and dismantling Pakistan was a miracle for the ages. This team is a beautiful mosaic of immigrants, juggling day jobs with their cricket dreams. Their super-over hero, Saurabh Netravalkar, is a Cornell graduate and software engineer at Oracle. Their captain, Monank Patel, used to be a restaurateur.

“Who knew I'd be playing in a World Cup, flipping woks in the middle of nowhere in South Carolina?” Patel told Cricbuzz.

It’s a team full of lovely, hopeful stories, and they shouldn’t have to beat some Goliaths for their own compatriots to know their name. Hosting a World Cup in the USA could've been a good choice, but only if executed with planning and precision. Taking this roadshow to a new land, in the middle of a relentless calendar, with marketing that wouldn't entice Yeti, is the kind of myopia that the ICC has a doctorate in. 

You’ve got to let the cold air waft in before piling on the woollens, lads.