Friday, May 8, 2009
A Tale of Two Cities
This is not about Charles Dickens novel written in 1859; rather it’s a contemporary tale of two cities Kolkata and Mumbai depicting their miserable performance during IPL-2 in South Africa. At the time of writing this, both teams are at the bottom of point table shattering hope of millions of people living in these two cities.
When Charles Dickens wrote this novel about London and Paris, little did he know that at the time of writing his novel, India was going under British Raj under which Indian cricket would flourish to reach a modern state of BCCI domination? Both Kolkata and Mumbai have rich cricket history and have pioneered the development and popularity of Indian Cricket. Whereas Kolkata is the city which introduced first bat and ball to India brought by East India Company, Mumbai is the city where in 1848, a Parsi community formed the Oriental Cricket Club, the first cricket club to be established by Indians.
There are millions of cricket fans in both these cities who live for cricket and would die for it. They have adopted cricket as their religion and Sachin / Ganguly as their God. Did their God fail them – not once, but twice? Both cities are crying to get an answer – in numerous articles written by so called cricket experts.
The top 6 teams are far ahead of Kolkata and Mumbai denying virtually no hope of semis – both teams defeated the top 6 teams only once (2 out of 3 wins of Mumbai came against Kolkata). Will both cities rise to the occasion – if not this year, next year? The spirit of both cities and hope of people living there will never die. Hope the sanity prevails in both teams.
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Do you mean to say because of their history, these team should qualify for semis? Are the other cities dont have history? Combined Population of these two cities is certainly not a billion yet. Are you sure?
ReplyDeleteAny team should NOT qualify because of its history. It is pity when teams representing cities with such great history don't do well.
ReplyDelete"Kolkata and Mumbai have great cricket history" don't logically mean other teams don't have history. But yes, I believe no other teams / cities in India have greater cricketing history than Kolkata and Mumbai.
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ReplyDeleteWell I don't agree that Kolkata has a great cricketing history. Apart from Dada (an ex hero), a hooligan uncivilized crowd who know no better way to kill time and an amphitheater to hold a lakh of people they got NOTHING. The closest thing to cricket in that land is "CPIM" (because both start with C)
ReplyDeleteHow sudeep came to the conclusion tha Kolkatta have greater cricketing history? If it means by number of players from Bengal Ranji team representing India? If so, I think Bangalore (Read Karnataka) should be way ahead and can be next only to Mumbai and Delhi. Manufacturing Bat cannot be counted as history. Any history has nothing to do with current performance. There is no international team has better history than England, and look at their current lowly rankings. BTW, before Ganguly, which 'prominent' Bengali Player represented India who comes to our mind readily? We have to dig the records books for long. Arun Lal in 80's? Any one afterwards?
ReplyDelete1) Kolkata introduced cricket to India brought by British
ReplyDelete2) Craziest cricketing fans. Kolkata passion for cricket can't be denied.
3) Stadium which is sold out with 120K easily.
Agree - not many players from Kolkata represented Indian team, but I don't think that is important criteria for history. Lack of Nobel prize by any Indian mathematician doesn't undemine rich history of mathematics in India.
I feel pity for English too who invented this game and falling behind.
Rich history doesn't always result in good outcome and when it doesn't it is a subject of pity - be it be Kolkata representation in Indian team or poor IPL, England poor performance or Lack of Nobel prize by Indian mathematician. But poor outcome doesn't undermine the rich history.