I guess you can call me a cricket-crazy guy. And I have no hesitation in saying that you are right. I think the Star Cricket channel was made solely for people like me (which shows that I am not the only one).
Probably its all in the blood. My grandfather had a big register. In that he kept a log of all cricketing action which he was able to catch on TV/Radio (not much in these days). The book had ball-by-ball account of these games. The entire scorecard was recorded. In the pre-cricinfo era, it was a virtual treasure trove of cricketing information. And I felt really proud when I was permitted to make entries into that book. The sports book (or rather books, it ran into multiple volumes) hasn’t been use in years now.
Interest in the game was further aided by Big Fun. In the Nineties, it was a pretty popular chewing gum. People would keep chewing while playing, in a bid to emulate the cricket heroes. Now with Big Fun would come a cricket player sticker (probably the real reason for its popularity). In the mid-nineties they started giving Trump Cards with player career stats. I had a pretty huge collection of over 100 cards. Name labels for school books with cricketers on them were amongst the more popular ones.
Then there were a plethora of board games. They were totally unrelated to cricket, but the scoring pattern was in runs & not points. Computer & video games hadn’t really come in a big way those days. So these were the main pastimes.
Then there were the cricket books. I have read all of Sunil Gavaskar’s writings, Keith Miller’s autobiography, World Cup books and many more. Television coverage had also improved with matches being telecast from all over the world.
In the “noughties” came the internet in a big way. Cricinfo became one of favorite websites. I could follow multiple matches from all over the world at the same time, while continuing with other activities also.
Interest in the game was further aided by Big Fun. In the Nineties, it was a pretty popular chewing gum. People would keep chewing while playing, in a bid to emulate the cricket heroes. Now with Big Fun would come a cricket player sticker (probably the real reason for its popularity). In the mid-nineties they started giving Trump Cards with player career stats. I had a pretty huge collection of over 100 cards. Name labels for school books with cricketers on them were amongst the more popular ones.
Then there were a plethora of board games. They were totally unrelated to cricket, but the scoring pattern was in runs & not points. Computer & video games hadn’t really come in a big way those days. So these were the main pastimes.
Then there were the cricket books. I have read all of Sunil Gavaskar’s writings, Keith Miller’s autobiography, World Cup books and many more. Television coverage had also improved with matches being telecast from all over the world.
In the “noughties” came the internet in a big way. Cricinfo became one of favorite websites. I could follow multiple matches from all over the world at the same time, while continuing with other activities also.
And with all this the simple game bat & ball was transformed into cricket.
My cricket watching career roughly follows Sachin Tendulkar’s cricket playing career. And I remember almost every match result since then. Amongst the 3 forms, Test Cricket is my favorite, ODIs have been over-killed and T20 should be limited to national level and World Cup, there shouldn’t be any bilateral T20 matches.
Among the activities/hobbies picked up at Planet-I was blogging. The blog was supposed to be about and every thing in this world. But quite a few posts turned out to be on cricket. So I decided why not have a fully dedicated cricket blog? And hence this blog came into existence. It was also a part of my New Year resolution (do something which I love doing). I liked writing, I loved cricket, so why not write about cricket. And hence the birth of this blog. I am not sure if anybody would read another website/blog on cricket. However the posts would keep on coming, mostly on the current happenings. An occasional down the memory lane kind of post would also be there.
My cricket watching career roughly follows Sachin Tendulkar’s cricket playing career. And I remember almost every match result since then. Amongst the 3 forms, Test Cricket is my favorite, ODIs have been over-killed and T20 should be limited to national level and World Cup, there shouldn’t be any bilateral T20 matches.
Among the activities/hobbies picked up at Planet-I was blogging. The blog was supposed to be about and every thing in this world. But quite a few posts turned out to be on cricket. So I decided why not have a fully dedicated cricket blog? And hence this blog came into existence. It was also a part of my New Year resolution (do something which I love doing). I liked writing, I loved cricket, so why not write about cricket. And hence the birth of this blog. I am not sure if anybody would read another website/blog on cricket. However the posts would keep on coming, mostly on the current happenings. An occasional down the memory lane kind of post would also be there.
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