Cricket – No More a Religion

Cricket is a game of Skill and I seriously do not think it is a religion. It’s quite shocking especially in India it is considered more of a religion & the players are the gods.
When it comes to games, Cricket is leading in the subcontinent. The passion among the people for the game is evident in the matches that are hosted in the Indian subcontinent. Thus it is said more than often that cricket has achieved the status of a religion with millions of followers to its credit.
If the country really appreciates the game then there should be ample public in the local club level matches and the standard of these games would also be higher. Unfortunately, this is not the case. It's true that people are crazy but they want to see their home country winning. They cannot appreciate the finer things of the game even if home country is winning forget about when losing a game. This may not look an appropriate justification to an avid cricket lover but the picture will be crystal clear if we visit other countries and sports.
For instance the stadium is full of capacity in the club level matches in England and Australia with people staying till the very end of the game. They appreciate a good shot even by an opponent player's team which is just opposite here as there is a pin drop silence even if the opposition player has hit a beautiful shot or taken a crucial wicket.
That’s not all there’s also a big dark picture of cricket which is followed as a Religion. Let’s see some few of them.
Pakistan Cricket coach, Bob Woolmer, was found unconscious in his hotel room later died in hospital and was murdered by ‘manual strangulation.’ how sad that someone should actually be murdered (presumably in connection with the game in some way) in such a vicious way for reasons associated with what is supposed to be a peaceful, civilized game is almost unthinkable.
Some years ago I came across news that stated that Shane Warne and Mark Waugh were asked to take money and perform bad. Few years later came the new millennium and the word "Match-fixing" haunted the world of cricket again. Almost everyone watching a cricket game knows there is something artificial about the game, and the performance is precisely that.
From the earlier match-fixing scandals that destroyed the careers of many top captains to the beyond tolerable commercialization of the IPL, cricket has long since lost its sheen. IPL which was supposed to be a domestic game has become more important for players than playing for their own country. And also let’s not forget the amount of corruption involved.

Test Match in Lord's in England, was dealt a deathly blow today with the expose in News of the World of a spot-fixing scandal wherein they allegedly paid a fixer on camera the relatively princely sum of £ 150,000 for Pakistan to throw no-balls against England in the ongoing fourth test. The cheating side delivered, with Mohammed Amir and Mohammed Asif turning in three sequential no-balls.

Something like match fixing or spot-fixing doesn’t only restrict to the people who are doing it or the side they belong to. People start associating it with the whole fraternity which means all cricketers whichever team you’re playing for. Activities like match fixing has a mental affect on all the players because it puts the game of cricket under scrutiny. However harsh decisions need to be taken, otherwise people will start blaming the entire cricketing fraternity.

Cricket is no way far from politics. During the 2010 Indian Premier League auction, one thing was absent: the selection of a single Pakistani. Making the omission even more suspicious, most of the members of Pakistan's champion World Twenty20 team were available, yet still none were chosen. Pakistani crickets were kept in the auction however where not choose by any of the team owners. This was completely against the spirit of the game. If a country has issues that they did not want to allow players to play they should not have added them to the auction list. Its quite insulting for any international player to not being taken by any of the clubs for a domestic tournament.

The reaction in Pakistan was immediate -- the interior minister deemed absence of Pakistani players a broad insult, claiming it was proof that India was not interested in peace. Cricket is usually the only thing Pakistan has to keep itself distracted from corruption, constant tension with India, Taliban insurgency in the North and the fact that much of the population lives far below the poverty line.
The game however is still in a wonderful place, we still have a lot of people coming and supporting and watching the game of cricket.