Mumbai rocked by terror, BCCI still thinks cricket

November 28, 2008 · Suneer Chowdhary · Jump to comments · twitter

The gulf between my blog pieces has been evidently due to the terror attacks that have shaken most of us. Being from Mumbai, and frequenting the areas around the places where it actually happened, there was a feeling of ‘I-could-have-been-there-too’ amongst others. Needless to say, but the heart goes out to all those who were directly and indirectly affected from it. Personally, the only activity that I have been engaged in the past couple of days has been following the news and cricket has been the last of the things on my mind.

It would be fair to say that cricket is only a very small part of the whole jigsaw puzzle called life, and an event of this magnitude shakes us all out of a reverie that one is in. A reverie called taking life for granted. The faces of grief-stricken, blood-ridden people will remain etched for a long time, and one does not know whether life would ever be same again for a lot of us. Cricket, on the other hand, is just another game.

But, I guess, on the other hand, writing on cricket also helps me distract myself from any adversities or stresses of life that I face, and that is the best that I can do to help myself. It is a temporary antidote to the wound; and I believe that is what I can do best to get life back on track. If that is possible in the coming few days, that is.

I wonder about the sense behind making an announcement regarding the English team returning back for the test matches. Does the average Indian cricket fan, at this poignant moment of time really care? Aren’t there more pressing issues to be spoken about, even as a marketing and promotion man of the world’s richest cricketing body? Have we heard from them about the security measures that the English team has been showered with? If, as an Indian, I have felt a shiver pass through my spines looking at the pictures on the telly, would it be even thinkable to expect the foreign players to contemplate a return to this country in the near future? Or would the arm-twisting of the BCCI, that is so akin to the shrug of the shoulder for an average Indian politician after such gory event, again raise its ugly head?

“No amount of money is worth the risk with what is going on over there at the moment,” is what Shane Warne pointed out after he saw the visuals on his way to the Champions League. Now, Warne may or may not have said it with the rightful intentions – he had earlier stayed put after the Jaipur blasts too – but the fact of the matter is that it hits the nail on the head. From the BCCI’s perspective too, does it make any sense to have a tournament or a test series planned in the wake of these attacks. What, god forbid, if it were to be some of the cricketers involved as well? Would the BCCI then have a face to exhibit?

Even as a cricket fan, I would strongly question the rationale of the BCCI even talking cricket at this point in time. Probably, they don’t just watch the right channels.

Oh, and yeah, the Champions League has been postponed to whenever it can be crammed to, yet the adverts regarding its start from the 3rd of December continue being beamed.

Cricket on terror attack in Lahore | Official Cricket Fan Club Blog. Covers latest news, videos, photos, live scores etc. - TheCricFanclub.com on March 3rd, 2009 5:43 pm

[...] English skipper, Michael Vaughan had made an interesting observation immediately the Mumbai terror attacks, after it had been revealed that he was one of the English cricketers residing in that very Taj [...]