ICC Tournaments: The Festival That Should be a Rare Occasion

The way cricket is treated is in our country, we are to be ensured that a lot is at stake. People chew their nails off while watching a thriller, some break their TV sets when the team loses to Pakistan or celebrate it like Diwali when they win. One such festival comes whenever there is an ICC tournament be it World Cup or Champions Trophy.

Since the commencement of the T20 World Cups in 2007, we have seen a new wave of liking for the format which was thought to be a flop on the world stage, where ODI was at an all-time high and everyone considered it to be the holy grail. The bowl out, the long Dhoni hair, 6-sixes in an over, and India winning it was so sensational that became the new favorite, like the new-born-little-boy in an Indian household. Everyone loved it because we won an ‘international’ tournament after ages and we needed it after the flop show in the 50-over cup that year.

Since then, we have seen cricket evolving to levels that we never thought of. Credits to Lalit Modi, the mastermind, who still consider introducing the Indian Premier League as his biggest achievement ever (the way he brings it up in every conversation, ever), genuinely changed the way we celebrated the festival that comes now every year.

We have entered 15 years of celebrating it, it is now just a ritual which we frown upon like dads at a ‘pooja’ because they are the ones asked to get things from the market, but eventually, those who perform the main task, switch on the TV to watch it with a long face and shout at players (actually TV screens) we supposedly ‘dislike’ for being money-minded. This is now customary. What brings freshness to this is now the ICC Trophies.

Is the emotion to win the ICC Trophy still the same even when we see the same players who play in IPL (playing together), playing cricket just with different jerseys? Well, there is no contention. The patriotism that is involved with the ICC tournament is still afresh because it happens rarely, it happens (at least it looks like) with fair intentions and India doesn’t win a lot of them!

Australia is in a habit of winning those tournaments and that is what makes them among the best team in the world. They are still carrying the label of their ancestors (because trust me that quality is in the past) of being the most robust team. The labels for national teams come from how they perform in ICC Trophies only, such as, South Africa is still considered Chokers, New Zealand is still struggling with the luck, Pakistan still has its strength in bowling (only) and West Indies are the swaggy ones who shake hands and heads, India is the team with best players but is not the best team. A lot has changed, but a lot hasn’t, and thank goodness that it hasn’t.

Why there was a mention of 15 years of IPL and fans being like dads? Well, because those dads live their young days in ICC tournaments, we enjoy cricket like kids when it’s World Cup. It is exciting to see your favorite players from around the world playing together but in the jersey where we know, they are not playing just for money, and also they bring something out in us fans that we think sitting at one spot really makes a difference in how Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma hit the six or get out. The ICC tournaments bring the best out of cricket, the best in a fan and even though it is rare, it should remain like that to maintain the sanctity of the feeling.