The Passion Of The Cricket Crowd

Mike Marqusee has a short essay here on watching cricket in India at the recent India–Pakistan test match at Mohali. Actually it's a celebration of the crowd:

A cricket crowd is a complex organism, a throbbing mass with a life of its own. It’s rarely static. In the course of a day’s play it undergoes paroxysms of joy and despair, intervals of humour, bouts of nastiness and periods of boredom. Sometimes it’s fractious, bickering with itself. Sometimes it’s unanimous - astonishingly, if briefly, it really does seem to feel like 'one soul', filled with a single emotion.

Not quite Lord's, but this is South Asia where cricket is still the people's game despite the penetration of the media and celebrity culture. Mike also sees some signs of hope that India versus Pakistan may be transforming into a normal sporting contest and not simply an excuse for hatred. He spots this on a banner:

Bat and ball is a lot better than assault rifle and grenade.

The photo (above) tells the same story. Read the rest.