Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history, dating back to the time, millions of years ago, when the first primitive man picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the air, and whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first primitive third umpire. The decision is still pending owing to technological errors with BCCI not adhering to DRS system. What inner force drove this first athlete? Your guess is as good as mine. Better, probably, because you haven't had four beers. All I know is, whatever the reason be, Mankind is still nuts about sports. As Ravi Shastri, who may not be the most likable person in the world of cricket commentary but is certainly one of the most obnoxious, put it: "In terms of Mankind and sports, blah blah blah blah the 1985 Benson & Hedges final Blah Blah Blah"
Did you get a chance to notice how Shastri and I both use the same term "Mankind."
Womankind really isn't into sports in the same way as GUYS [Moto: Do we really need to mature?] do. Oh, I realize things have changed since my school days, when sports were considered unfeminine and the average girls' PT period consisted of 3 girls running around waving field-hockey sticks and squealing like a rat caught under the door, and another 27 girls standing on the sidelines in civilian clothing, claiming it was That Time of the school for them to relax. I realize that today you have a number of top female athletes such as Sareena Williams who can run like deer and bench- press Scorpio SUVs. But to be brutally frank, women as a group have a long way to go before they reach the level of intensity and dedication to sports that enables men to be such incredible jerks.
If you don't believe me, go to your local tennis club and observe the difference between the way men and women play. Where I play (OK used to play), the women tend to gather on the court in groups of random sizes -- sometimes three, sometimes five, as if it were a Jane Fonda workout -- and the way they play is, one of them will hit the ball at the wall, and the rest of them will admire the shot and compliment her quite sincerely, and then they all sort of relax, as if they're thinking, well, thank goodness games is over. They always seem to be surprised when the ball comes back. If one of them has the presence of mind to take another swing, and if she actually hits the ball, everybody is very complimentary as if they she has been announced the Miss Universe. If she misses it, the others all tell her what a good try she made, really, then they all laugh and act very relieved because they know they have some time to talk before the ball comes bouncing off that darned wall again. [This also proves that women are a little paranoid with Physics too]
Meanwhile, over in the next court, you will have two males wearing various knee braces and wrist bands and special anti-sweat T-shirts, hurling themselves into the walls like intoxicated oxen, and after every single point one or both of them will yell "S$#%!" in the self-reproving tone of voice you might use if you had just accidentally shot your pet dog. India men tend to take their sports seriously, much more seriously than they take family matters, or peace in South Asia.
This is why it's usually a mistake for men and women to play on teams together. I sometimes play in a co-ed tennis ball cricket league, where the rules say you have to have two women on the field. The teams always have one of the women play keeper, because in a tennis ball match the batsmen hit just about every ball, so it wouldn't really hurt you much if you had a deceased person as a wicket keeper. Our team usually puts the other woman at slip area, where the maximum possible number of males can get there on short notice to help out in case of emergency. As far as I can tell, our second slip women is a pretty good cricket player, better than I am, but there's no way to know for sure because if the ball gets anywhere near her, a male comes barging over from, say, long on, to deal with it. She's been on the team for three years now, but the males still don't trust her. They know, deep in their souls, that if she had to choose between throwing at the non-strikers end for a run-out and saving an infant's life, she would probably elect to save the infant's life, without even considering when the batsmen were going for a quick non-existent single.
This difference in attitude between men and women carries over to the area of talking about sports, especially sporting events that took place long ago. Take the 1985 World Championships. If we were to look at it objectively, we would have to agree that the outcome of the 1985 Final no longer matters. India loses every one of them periodically and scientifically. You could make a fairly strong case that it didn't really matter in 1985 itself. Women know this, which is why you almost never hear them mention the 1985 World Championship tournament, whereas you take virtually any male over age 37, and even if he can't remember which of his children has taken Hindi as a third language, he can remember exactly how Rameez Raja was stumped by an off break from Shastri, and he will take every available opportunity to discuss it at length with other males.
See that? Out there in Blogger land, you females just read right through that last sentence, nodding in agreement, but you males leaped from your chairs and shouted: "Rameez Raja wasn't stumped! Rameez was caught by SrikKanth, only Miandad was stumped!" Every male in India has millions of perfectly good brain cells devoted to information like this. We can't help it. We have no perspective. I have a friend named Inirs, name written backwards to protect his identity and the most rational person you ever want to meet, and during a Ranji match, it was a great honour for us when inirs had to collect the ball from the boundary and Kapil Dev was gesturing to throw the ball to him. The rest of us congratulated Inirs as if he'd won the Nobel Prize for physics.
Did you get a chance to notice how Shastri and I both use the same term "Mankind."
Womankind really isn't into sports in the same way as GUYS [Moto: Do we really need to mature?] do. Oh, I realize things have changed since my school days, when sports were considered unfeminine and the average girls' PT period consisted of 3 girls running around waving field-hockey sticks and squealing like a rat caught under the door, and another 27 girls standing on the sidelines in civilian clothing, claiming it was That Time of the school for them to relax. I realize that today you have a number of top female athletes such as Sareena Williams who can run like deer and bench- press Scorpio SUVs. But to be brutally frank, women as a group have a long way to go before they reach the level of intensity and dedication to sports that enables men to be such incredible jerks.
If you don't believe me, go to your local tennis club and observe the difference between the way men and women play. Where I play (OK used to play), the women tend to gather on the court in groups of random sizes -- sometimes three, sometimes five, as if it were a Jane Fonda workout -- and the way they play is, one of them will hit the ball at the wall, and the rest of them will admire the shot and compliment her quite sincerely, and then they all sort of relax, as if they're thinking, well, thank goodness games is over. They always seem to be surprised when the ball comes back. If one of them has the presence of mind to take another swing, and if she actually hits the ball, everybody is very complimentary as if they she has been announced the Miss Universe. If she misses it, the others all tell her what a good try she made, really, then they all laugh and act very relieved because they know they have some time to talk before the ball comes bouncing off that darned wall again. [This also proves that women are a little paranoid with Physics too]
Meanwhile, over in the next court, you will have two males wearing various knee braces and wrist bands and special anti-sweat T-shirts, hurling themselves into the walls like intoxicated oxen, and after every single point one or both of them will yell "S$#%!" in the self-reproving tone of voice you might use if you had just accidentally shot your pet dog. India men tend to take their sports seriously, much more seriously than they take family matters, or peace in South Asia.
This is why it's usually a mistake for men and women to play on teams together. I sometimes play in a co-ed tennis ball cricket league, where the rules say you have to have two women on the field. The teams always have one of the women play keeper, because in a tennis ball match the batsmen hit just about every ball, so it wouldn't really hurt you much if you had a deceased person as a wicket keeper. Our team usually puts the other woman at slip area, where the maximum possible number of males can get there on short notice to help out in case of emergency. As far as I can tell, our second slip women is a pretty good cricket player, better than I am, but there's no way to know for sure because if the ball gets anywhere near her, a male comes barging over from, say, long on, to deal with it. She's been on the team for three years now, but the males still don't trust her. They know, deep in their souls, that if she had to choose between throwing at the non-strikers end for a run-out and saving an infant's life, she would probably elect to save the infant's life, without even considering when the batsmen were going for a quick non-existent single.
This difference in attitude between men and women carries over to the area of talking about sports, especially sporting events that took place long ago. Take the 1985 World Championships. If we were to look at it objectively, we would have to agree that the outcome of the 1985 Final no longer matters. India loses every one of them periodically and scientifically. You could make a fairly strong case that it didn't really matter in 1985 itself. Women know this, which is why you almost never hear them mention the 1985 World Championship tournament, whereas you take virtually any male over age 37, and even if he can't remember which of his children has taken Hindi as a third language, he can remember exactly how Rameez Raja was stumped by an off break from Shastri, and he will take every available opportunity to discuss it at length with other males.
See that? Out there in Blogger land, you females just read right through that last sentence, nodding in agreement, but you males leaped from your chairs and shouted: "Rameez Raja wasn't stumped! Rameez was caught by SrikKanth, only Miandad was stumped!" Every male in India has millions of perfectly good brain cells devoted to information like this. We can't help it. We have no perspective. I have a friend named Inirs, name written backwards to protect his identity and the most rational person you ever want to meet, and during a Ranji match, it was a great honour for us when inirs had to collect the ball from the boundary and Kapil Dev was gesturing to throw the ball to him. The rest of us congratulated Inirs as if he'd won the Nobel Prize for physics.
It's silly; really, this male lack of perspective and it can lead to unnecessary tragedy, such as soccer-riot deaths and the Delhi University. What is even more tragic is that women are losing perspective, too. Even as you read these words, women are writing vicious comments to this blog, expressing great fury at me for suggesting they don't take their tennis seriously. Soon they will be droning on about the importance of slower deliveries.
