Why Indians Are So Crazy About Cricket?

Cricket is a very popular sport in India. A large portion of the Indian people is addicted to this sport. When there is a Cricket Match between India and any other country, or even between Australia and West Indies (or any other two countries), Cricket Fanatics in India like to avoid routine work and like to sit before TV sets to watch the match live. These people get a hysteric pleasure when ‘their’ team gets advantage, and if 'their' player makes a mistake (i.e. outs, dropping of a catch or giving runs to the opposite team), these fanatics use abusive words for their own cricketers.

While the match is going on on the television and some one disturbs these fanatics, they become angry. If someone comes for an urgent work, he has to wait until the match is over. Even if the visitor is not interested in watching cricket, he has to watch it, or to go back. These fanatics get disturbed even if their phone rings.

When something interesting happens in the match (of course interesting for the cricket fanatics), these people make phone calls to their other Cricket fanatic friends to tell the Braking news. Even after the match ends, the only subject of discussion for these people is Cricket. Cricket, Cricket and Cricket....

But cricket is not played everywhere in the world. This sport is limited to 10-12 countries. The fact is that this sport is popular in some of the countries (not all) which were ruled by England. Even the people of England (Which gave birth to cricket) are not crazy about this sport.

The question is that why Indians love this game so much? Why they do not take much interest in sports like Football, Hockey, Athletics, Wrestling, Kabbadi, Kho Kho?

There are many physical and psychological reasons for it.

You need much physical and mental energy to play and even to watch sports like football, hockey etc. Most of the Indians are physically and psychologically weak people. This weakness is the most important reason for staying away from the sports which need a high energy. Compare the very fast game of football with the very comfortable game of cricket. In the game of football even the referees need a high stamina, while the umpire in the game of cricket is the laziest person. Cricket is the game of lazy people. We can categorize Indians as the laziest people in the world. So it is natural that Indians like cricket.

But this is not just about stamina. Cricket is the easiest game to understand. People with a low IQ too can understand it. On the other hand, to understand the games like football and hockey, you need some knowledge. Average Indians never understand complicated things. So they do not understand most of the other games.

The third reason is related to the subconscious mind. Indians were following unaccountability for thousands of years. It was banned by law in modern India. But the practice still lives in subconscious minds of most of the Indians. Cricket is the game where the players do not need to touch each others. This is not possible in football, hockey, wrestling, kabbadi etc. That is why there is a love for cricket and hate for ‘touching games’ amongst average Indians. That is why we see most of the Indian cricketers are from Brahmin or so called 'higher' communities. This fact tells us why we do not see cricket players from the so called lower castes in cricket teams.

Notable thing is that the players in Indian Hockey or Football teams are totally different...from different communities...and especially from armed forces, and the communities which are physically strong.

Have you seen any Brahmin player in hockey or football, or even in wrestling, kabbadi or kho kho?

Our Government also gives too much importance to Cricket. This game helps the Government to keep away the people from their basic needs and problems. Cricket works like opium, and people ignore the wrong things that our Government do.

-Mahavir Sanglikar