India’s obsessive-compulsive-cricketing-disorder

If you are an Indian sports enthusiast, you must spare a few moments to read this post by Sanjay Manjrekar, former Indian cricketer on the current Chappel-Ganguly imbroglio. There has been drop-dead coverage of this issue in newspapers & television channels over the past few days. And every Indian, true to the collective obsessive-compulsive-cricketing-disorder that he/she suffers from,has a passionate viewpoint on this. Amidst this cacophony,I found Manjrekar’s analysis of the issue brilliantly incisive and levelheaded.

I can’t agree more with him; viewed narrowly, this issue would seem to about Chappell v/s Ganguly, about bruised egos, about conspiracy theories or about the cricket team losing steam for the next World Cup. However at its core, the issue revolves around whether we Indians can learn to be disciplined, practical and objective in our sporting decisions. Can sports be a meritocracy or will it continue to fall prey to the politics, factionalism, regionalism, favouritism, ad-hocism, red tapism etc that characterize almost every aspect of Indian society.

I am an avid sports buff (as opposed to being just cricket crazy) and my respect for Sanjay Manjrekar has gone up tremendously post this article; till now I have looked upon people like Sunil Gavaskar or Vijay Amritraj as the most sensible sporting thinkers in the country; Sanjay Manjrekar’s name can surely be added to that list.