Cricket: Can it provide the Healing Touch?

मैं कुर्सी पे बैठके खबरे दिए जा रही थी,
क्यों ना कुछ और कर पा रही थी...?
(I was sitting on a Chair and giving news, why was I not doing anything else?)

Nidhi Kulpati, NDTV's Anchor, once said these lines in a programme. And these were my exact feelings during all the mayhem that happened in Mumbai.

I work for Sports Department of a Mumbai based Marathi News Channel. Normally, I talk of overs bowled, shots played, points and goals scored, records being taken over. But for those three- four days, and a few days after that, I was speaking of grenades, guns, gunmen and guards.

Every person in our channel was working on only one news and its different angles- the terror attack on Mumbai. I was not an exception. In fact, War, Defense and International Relations are the subjects of my interest since school days ( of course, along with Sports- which is a war in a different sense).So I was constantly following all the updates coming from battle ground and from arround the world. I was working for our website and we all in the office and on ground worked for hours during that period.

And, in those times, for the first time in my professional career, I felt how unimportant things like Sports can be at such times. But then, my conscious reminded me, of wonders Sports can do at such times.

Yes, I believe Sports have the ability to do wonders to our world. It brings people together and reduce the tension on person to person level. More than all, a sport teaches us to learn from the defeat and move on in our life.

That is the reason why the world was anxiously waiting for England's Cricket Team's decision. Finally, they made it—for whatever reasons—and Test Series is starting from tomorrow.
Their decision to continue with the tour is seen by many as a decision taken to keep the financial interests. May be economy was a factor, but surely, it's a brave step. And I hope Indian team too, takes a brave step and go and play in Pakistan—at least on a short trip.
Cricket was never so important like it has become now. True that you can not fight a real world problem on a cricket pitch. To do that, affirmative actions are reqired from the authorities. But Cricket do give you the patience and hope and it takes care that the intensity and impact of worldly problems will be reduced.

How ironical! People had got horrified to see the onslaught on Mumbai, But they'll get positively inspired to see the onslaught on Cricket field.

I always believed, When the work of Armed Forces finishes, work of Sportsmen, Musicians and people alike begins. And the time has come for Cricket to prove it's worth again, and time has come for us to tell why this game is so worthy.

Whatever may happen, We shall keep doing the task in our hand. Nothing shall stop us.

Anxiously waiting for the match to begin...