By Robert Clements
India won.
Not in kabaddi. Not in gilli danda. Not in kabaddi or kho kho, where our childhood training would have given us a natural advantage.
No. India won in cricket.
We defeated New Zealand. A few days earlier we had comfortably brushed aside England. The television commentators spoke with the careful politeness of people who are trying not to sound too surprised. But the rest of us were not surprised at all. We were sitting comfortably on our sofas saying, “Of course we won.”
And that is where the comedy of history begins.
Because cricket, in case we have conveniently forgotten, is a colonial game. It did not originate in the lanes of Kanpur or the maidans of Mumbai. It arrived here with the British along with railways, woollen trousers, stiff collars, and the curious habit of drinking tea at four o’clock in the afternoon as if the fate of civilisation depended on it.
The British brought cricket with great seriousness. They believed it built character. It taught discipline, fairness, and gentlemanly conduct. They played it in their clubs while the rest of us watched from outside the fence and wondered why grown men were wearing white clothes to roll a red ball around a field for five days.
But Indians are wonderfully practical people.
We did not waste time arguing about colonialism while standing on the boundary line. We simply watched carefully, understood the rules, and quietly started playing the game ourselves.
And then something remarkable happened. We improved it.
The British played straight drives with elegance and dignity. Indians added wristy flicks that sent the ball racing to the boundary like it had urgent business elsewhere. The British believed in classical batting. Indians invented the reverse sweep, which looks suspiciously like a man who has suddenly realised he is holding the bat the wrong way but decides to continue anyway.
And then there is our national speciality. Arguing with umpires.
No country in the world debates an umpire’s decision with such passion, creativity, and historical references. A simple LBW appeal in India can become a philosophical discussion about angles, destiny, and the moral rights of the batsman.
But somewhere along the way we became masters of the game.
Today the inventors of cricket sit in commentary boxes explaining Indian batting techniques with scholarly seriousness while Indian batsmen send their bowlers searching for the ball in the stands.
It is a beautiful thing to watch.Which makes one wonder.If we can do this with cricket, why stop there?
Why not beat them at courtesy?
Because if we are honest with ourselves, courtesy is not currently our national strength. Once upon a time visitors to India wrote long letters home describing how polite Indians were. Today visitors write about traffic.
And honking.
In India the horn is not merely a device attached to a vehicle. It is a philosophical instrument used to express emotion. Drivers honk to say hello, goodbye, move aside, wake up, hurry up, and occasionally simply because the horn works.
Then there are queues.
Queues in India are fascinating social experiments. Stand patiently in a line for five minutes and watch human creativity unfold. Within a short time someone will quietly appear from nowhere and slide into the front as smoothly as a magician producing a rabbit from a hat.
If challenged, the person will look deeply offended and say, “I was always here.”
Always here.
Possibly since the Indus Valley civilisation. But imagine a different India.
Imagine drivers stopping patiently at pedestrian crossings. Imagine people waiting calmly in queues without attempting to overtake the entire population. Imagine citizens who do not treat public walls as personal spittoons.
Foreign tourists would faint from shock.
And why stop there?
Why not beat the world at democracy, justice, and fairness?
Not by shouting louder than everyone else. The world already has enough shouting. What it needs is an example.
Cricket teaches a simple lesson.
You do not win matches by reminding the opposition that your ancestors once played magnificent cricket in the year 3000 BC. No batsman walks onto the field and announces that his great grandfather once played a glorious cover drive against a coconut tree.
The bowler would remove his stumps in about three seconds.
Cricket is wonderfully practical.You win by scoring runs today.You win by fielding well today. You win by behaving like a team today.
And that may be the real lesson from these cricket victories. Our cricketers did not spend their time complaining about where the game came from. Our politicians are quick to pull down anything colonial. But here, our cricketers learned it, practised it, improved it, and then quietly became better than the people who invented it.
There is something wonderfully Indian about that.
Take something foreign.
Understand it.
Improve it.
And then defeat the original owners.
Which is why perhaps cricket is not just a game.
It is a national philosophy.
And if we can master colonial cricket so brilliantly, there is absolutely no reason why we cannot master colonial courtesy, democracy, fairness, and good manners as well.
After all, if we can teach the world cricket, teaching the world how to go back to good colonial habits like how to behave should be quite easy…!
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