Loyalties

While getting tipsy with friends at Janata a few nights ago on Wednesday, 2 March, with the Cricket World Cup England-Ireland match playing on a wall T.V. in the background, I couldn't help but notice the way everyone in the room (well, almost everyone) was supporting Ireland.

Why was this? Why do we automatically align ourselves with one particular team each time a cricket match is on? Well, I think a lot of people just like supporting the underdogs. We would of course support India if they were playing, as national affiliations come first in the cheering order of things. And of course if we're neutral towards both parties, the fact that we just like one better as a nation also plays a part in whom we cheer for, the factors contributing towards 'liking' being that we don't hate anyone in that team, common race and historical factors, oppression, etc.

How would these factors play out over other international matches? Here are some examples. We'd generally support:

India in any match involving India.

Ireland, Canada, Kenya or the Netherlands in any match of theirs not involving India, as they haven't pissed us off in any way, and they're the underdogs. And we like the Irish. Something about kinsmanship with people from other occupied territories.
New Zealand in any match not involving the nations mentioned above.

The West Indies in any match not involving the nations mentioned above.
Bangladesh in any match not involving the nations mentioned above.

Sri Lanka in any match not involving the nations mentioned above.

Zimbabwe in any match not involving the nations mentioned above.

England only in matches involving South Africa, Pakistan or Australia.

South Africa only in matches involving Pakistan or Australia.

Pakistan in a Pakistan-Australia match, as watching Australia lose is more fun than watching Pakistan lose.

We don't support Australia in any match.

Do these loyalties carry outside the sport of cricket? I'm sure they do. When it comes to relationship spats, celebrity fights, wars, corporate feuds, etc., I'm sure we all subconsciously support, or at least want to support one side, one team. We want to take sides. Even based on the flimsiest of excuses. It's in our nature.

Loyalties

Fake IPL Player Blog

This Fake IPL Player blog could be a demonstration of Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point theories. It's a phenomenon that's garnered too many followers in too short a time. Here are reports from Techtree, Rediff, the Guardian, and msn.

Cricket with Balls, King Cricket and indiatimes all have a series of posts on the subject, as do numerous bloggers.

And here's the Knight Rider's response.

And the latest from Yahoo is that he/she's now vanished.

Fake IPL Player Blog

Unfair?

The schedule for the 2009 Twenty20 World Cup is out on Rediff and guess what? India seems to be at a slight advantage.


There are three teams per group. The first round consists of each team playing against the other two teams in their group. The top two teams from each group then go to round two.

India should almost certainly feature in round 2. But this is Twenty20 cricket and anything can happen. Anyone willing to take a bet on Ireland, Scotland and The Netherlands making it into the top 8?

Unfair?

Rajasthan Royals Win

The Rajasthan Royals won the inaugral IPL tournament yesterday. Can't help feeling a bit proud of them since they're owned by a company I'm associated with.

I did attend the semi final match between the Royals and the Delhi Daredevils at the Wankhede stadium at 8.00 PM at Churchgate on Friday with about a hundred other mates from the office (the company graciously paid for our tickets). While the match was exciting, it was quite one-sided as the Daredevils didn't put up much of a fight.

It was my first time attending a live cricket match in a stadium, and Wankhede is legendary, though those who attended the Royals-MI match at D.Y Patil tell me that that stadium is a whole lot better. It's hard to describe the excitement that we felt watching a live match. We couldn't see the ball half of the time but still cheered for each run and even danced on the benches for every four and six.

The continuous cheering left our voices sore for the remainder of the night, and for my compatriots, probably for the next day as well. It was also sweltering in the stadium sitting under the harsh floodlights for 3 hours. We were drenched in sweat from more or less the time that we took our seats, and didn't stop sweating till we left the stadium. Not to mention that food and water were hard to come by and priced double, which didn't stop the office guys from trying to buy packets of water and ice cream in between cheers and jigs.

Still, I was ready to party after the match. Everyone else, on the other hand, seemed exhausted, probably because of the above reasons, and quickly trooped back home, leaving me stranded with nothing to do. Not one to let my office friend's apparent ineptitude for fun dampen my spirits, I called up MD, met him and three other friends at Kandivli, and hit a couple of bars. Strange that suburban bars are so crowded at 2-3 A.M in the morning.

Rajasthan Royals Win

IPL Discussion

I recently responded to a bloggers post criticising the IPL. While I trust I've employed critical reasoning techniques and logic that I've learned over the last two years to refute this blogger's arguments, I still think that this whole IPL issue is open for discussion.

Here's what I had to say. If anyone does read this, please feel free to contribute, to find holes in or to disagree with what I've said:

Hi,

I disagree with your views on the new IPL. You say that our country has problems and that the owners of these teams should not be throwing money away on useless cricketers. I find no relation between the problems of our country that you mention and a legitimate investment that a person or organisation makes in a business venture.

The IPL is, at the end of the day, nothing but a business venture that needs investment, just like millions of other businesses in this country. By your logic, do I now approach my neighbourhood grocery store owner and tell him to shut shop because his profits go only to himself and not the poor? Going by your logic, no person, businessman or other wise, can invest in any business involved in personal gain. Going by your logic, schools and hospitals themselves, which also function like private organisations, and also work on profits and a bottom line, should also shut shop.

Doesn't the building and functioning of schools and hospitals also involve huge sums of money? True, schools, hospitals and parks are noble causes that help society; investing in them is essentially investing in a better society, unlike investing in the IPL league, which largely only benefits the cricketers, their owners, and management. But many schools and hospitals are also privately funded, profit making ventures. So the difference that you make between the two is really one of purpose. Though they both function as greedy capitalist ruthlessly efficient organisations and employ the same methods and amount of money, the main difference between them is that schools and hospitals help people.

But this difference in itself does not invalidate the need for pouring money into the IPL. Why? Because people have a right to make as much money as they possibly can, without having to be forced to achieve this by always investing in a good cause. Don't you agree? Just because the companies we invest in or whose products we buy (like Reliance, Tata, Birla, etc.) are focused on selfish profit making, does not mean that we abandon all this selfish profit making and work, invest in or buy products from companies that only serve the country's need. That is silly.

Business is business. Just because funding a hospital is better than funding a cricket team, does not mean that we should spend the rest of our lives seeking out and funding or working for only organisations that help society at large and may or may not be able to support their employees and investors and their families in the long run.

You see, there is a limit to the amount of money that rich people can pour into charitable or 'low return' or society friendly organisations. Sooner or later, they will have to make money. That, after all, is the function of businessmen - they spend money to make money. You can't go up to an IPL owner or investor and accuse them of not doing enough for the country. For all you know, these individuals could be donating a larger part of their personal income to the poor than you are. 

Their job is to make money. If the way to make that money is by tapping venture capitalists or spending their life savings on a bunch of over hyped, overpaid cricketers, this does not make them bad people. It makes them smart business people. We need such smart people in this country. We need to teach our kids to be as smart as they are. We won't rid this country of poverty without smart people like these.

IPL Discussion