Cricket

This week's column was inspired by a trip the three of us took last week to a cricket match between the New Delhi Dare Devils and the Mumbai Indians. We were prepared to have to shove through crowds and ask 38 people which way to go but were amazed at the signage, cordoned-off areas, orderly lines and cops who actually knew where gate 6 was. I think the Republic Day parade needs to ask the cricket folks to handle their crowd control. Nitin printed out pages on "how to follow cricket" from some web site. Naya kept saying she was looking for Dhoni. I thought we might get bored halfway through but about 20 minutes into the game, thanks to our friend Seema's commentary and the hordes of people around us, we got really into it. Definitely faster than baseball--which makes me wonder what the heck people are talking about when they say it's a cross between baseball and sleeping or such nonsense. I loved it and even yelled "VIRU" for the star Sehwag... but once Delhi's fourth batter scored low, we thought our team was doomed--and we left. Big mistake. While we were in the car, some guy came to bat and scored 56 runs! Oh well, we learned a few lessons.