Numbers don’t matter, heart does.

(also published in www.cricinfo.com)

These days statistics and numbers are thrown at us like a half-tracker from an accurate Mitchell Johnson. Well, at least for me, they don’t matter. It maybe be sacrilegious to many a cricket enthusiast, but I don’t care how many runs Sachin has made, how many wickets Murali has taken or for that matter how many times did Ponting waggle his finger at the umpire. What matters to me is the inexplicable feeling that these guys, like many others, evoke inside me when they come on to bat or bowl or take a running start at the covers.
That feeling when your heart brims over with hope, when your stomach plays host to butterflies is what makes that player special.
That sinking feeling when a Kallis walks out to bat or watching Ponting get on the front foot. That feeling when you know in your gut that today may not be your day.
It’s much like love. You don’t need statistics and past history to point you towards a relationship that will work out. It seldom does. Its your gut and the slow melancholic dance of the butterflies in your stomach that points you to a direction.
Yes, a lot like love, actually. You don’t care beyond a point how many relationships the other person has had. Its this one, the one that you are in, you are most concerned about. You don’t care, beyond the first hundred stolen glances at her, what’s her vital statistics are. I agree, that’s the initial reaction. But beyond a point, it doesn’t matter.
It is the same feeling that proves to me that Ganguly is best not playing the IPL. Hold on to your effigies. I don’t care how many runs he made in the last IPL or whether he was the most successful captain. What I care about is that the God of offside no longer evokes the same emotion in me. That emotion of knowing that while Dada is at the crease, no offside field is perfect, no bowler is dangerous and there is nothing called an off-side field.
I don’t know what is Yusuf Pathan’s career average. Or his highest score. All I know is that when he takes guard, I don’t change the channels, no matter how bad the batting side is playing.
To me, that matters. More than numbers.

Why Rajnikanth wasn’t picked in the Chennia IPL team?

I mean, come on, the alpha male of India, the man who doesn’t need a bat to score. Runs, I mean. The man who can hit a 6 off a wide. The man who is the god of offside, legside, all the sides of a trapezium…Ah well, you get the idea.
Who wouldn’t want a guy in their team who could run a 6 off a forward defensive prod back to the bowler. Who could determine the result of a match at the toss. Who doesn’t need to appeal, just a stare at the umpire will do.
His ‘don’t see ball, hit ball’ is a philosophy that many a cricketer have adopted. Albeit with some modifications, more suited to their mortal status of course.
Who will reimburse his IPL team owners if they didn’t win the trophy.
Who, I say?
Who wouldn’t want such a man in his team?
Why wouldn’t Chennai pick him. He is a God down there. All other Gods exist at his benevolence. The team wouldn’t need a coach. Hell, they wouldn’t even need the other 10 players.
They can save all that money. And put it to probably finding a solution to make enough clothes for the Tollywood heroines down there.
Wait. Did you just say that a cricket team has to have 11 players on the field?
Did you also say that cricket is a team-sport? Not a one man army.
And that all the teams that have won the IPL so far have won on the basis of teamwork and not just on the back of one person?
That’s so medieval.
Is that the reason why the Rajnikanth of the east wasn’t picked up his team?
I wonder.