We at Cricket Bakchod have a theory for most things cricket. Massive amounts of research, experiments, surveys and scotch have gone into our theory. (Ok! You got us there, only massive amounts of scotch).
So here is the latest. We call this The Great Indian Midget Theory.
Ramachandra Guha, the great cricket historian who writes when he is sober, once gave these 3 points about the rise of cricket in India.
First - Narrow streets where every child first experiences the sport, provide a natural setting for the basic grammar of ‘playing straight’ to be adopted. (Remember when you played that ugly hoick across the line and were felt up by Sharmaji, attempting to fetch back the ball?)
Second - Cricket is a sport that doesn’t demand much athletic ability, allowing almost anyone to participate. (Which other sport can have an icon who looks like WG Grace)
Third - Periodic intervals during a match, has turned its viewer ship into a semi-social occasion.
Okay, now wake up, history class is over. Sadly, our grand old man Guha read a million books but essentially remained a historian hence couldn’t explain why we became so good at the skills required to play the game.
The Theory:
During cricket's growth years in India, we were mainly good at two things, batting and spin bowling. The Bakchods call upon their immense cricket watching and alcohol drinking experience to explain the reason for this. We concluded, we Indians are short men, shorter than all the other cricket playing nations. (Did you say what about Bangladesh? We said C-R-I-C-K-E-T, not upgraded gilli danda). And unlike most other sports where height is an advantage, most of the skills in cricket are easier to acquire for a short guy. Think about all the great batsman of yore, Vishwanath, Gavaskar et al were all short men. They had the great advantage of being balanced at the crease, which is the essence of batting. Shorter men with low centre of gravity will always be more balanced while transferring their weight on the front or the back foot. And most of the balls will always come to them at a good height (Apologies for sexual overtone! Completely intended). Some of you will now be trying to bullshit us with your examples of Sobers, Lloyd, Gayle, etc as tall batsmen who were successful but we will just ignore you as we have more pegs to consume and less time to explain ourselves. But just imagine if Gods were watching a cricket channel now, will it be showing footage of Lloyd, Sobers or Vishwanath, Gavaskar, Bradman, Tendulkar? (Again! IndiaTV does not own a cricket channel and your argument in invalid)
The other great success stories were the spinners. The Bedis and Prasannas again were short men. Grown up men cried watching these short men throw the ball up, women moaned and groaned over their capacity to hit "the right spot" each and every time. Taller men could never get the kind of loop going like these little men.
So, there you have it, The Midget Theory. First in the series of many that the Bakchods are going to throw at you. Leave a comment if you are pissed off at the thought of drunken men explaining to you all there is to explain about cricket.
Note: If you think, we focused more on scotch and less on cricket, blame yourself and go pour a large one.
- rajesh@cricketbakchod.com
