Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Cricket in lieu of war

“Sport gives the catharsis, pain-free drama, clarity and resolution that the world outside cannot. And nobody gets hurt” says Jonathan Freedland in his column in The Guardian, while justifying his fixation for cricket which, in turn, forced him to buy a Blackberry – just to know the scores in real time.

He adds,” Sport offers what the news cannot. Pain-free drama, to be sure – a clash of nations with an inevitable outpouring of patriotism, yet mercifully free of violence – but something else too. It promises clarity and resolution to a world short of both. Few political battles, outside elections, end with a clear winner and a settled outcome. They involve messy compromise, delay and necessary fudge. Few sporting matches end like that (though a drawn test match comes close). Most conclude with the catharsis of a decision. Our personal and our public lives are not like that. Sport gives us a certainty we rarely know.

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