Tuesday 11 December 2012

Hail all them Live Streams!

It's not easy, being a Sri Lankan born 21 year old, spending his 1st year in Canada. Cold winters, no beaches, no sunshine for the most part of the year. Downright depressing. But that sort of dilemma is part of living in Canada. They are things all Canadians go through everyday, every year. It is expected. It is something that you prepare for. What you don't prepare for, is the lack of cricket!

It meant, no going down to the SSC to watch the after lunch session on a weekday evening. No lining up at the B lower stand at the Premadasa to watch a One-dayer. Not even watching matches on Channel Eye on a Sunday morning. Barring the details, I was deprived of watching cricket by any means I used to back home. As a Sri Lankan, I don't think you can EVER prepare for that kind of torture!

Specially if you are one of those Sri Lankans who eat, breath and live cricket. For us, cricket is not just a game. It is still a game, where we accept both victory and defeat, cheering the team on no matter what goes about on the field. But it is not JUST that. It's about passionately watching every ball while making millions of permutations in our heads, predicting the opponent's next move and suggesting how Sri Lanka should face up to it, even before it has been executed. It is about carefully analyzing every build up, every game, every win and every loss. Coming in to conclusions, making statements both statistical and emotional, and just hoping against hope that a Sangakkara or a Muralitharan would conjure some sort of miracle, now and again, just to carefully and swiftly, BLOW YOUR MIND!

Sri Lanka is that sort of cricketing nation. We are very consistent. We lose about 35-40% of the one day games we play every year. Tests, we seldom win a series, obviously that being at home. Draw lots of them, and lose a few here and there. But we are consistent. Not consistently winning, or consistently losing, just consistently above average. It doesn't make us a world dominating side, but it doesn't make us a dreadful side either, and neither are we average. It's like Banana. Neither brilliantly tasteful like Rambutan, nor horribly tasteless like Laulu. Just Banana, tasty but not the best thing you've ever had.

Sri Lanka : Consistently surprising, or surprisingly consistent?
But now and again, we decide to show that we are a top team. Like that really good Koli-Kuttu you had at your mother's cousin's uncle's brother-in-law's wife's almsgiving. Every now and again, we surprise everyone. We are so consistent at surprising people, that the Pakistanis, South Africans and the English probably expect us to surprise them more often than we do! And THAT is something we take pride in. Us die hard fans, that is. We know our team, and we know it's potential, and we feel SO PROUD when they live up to it. Cricket has that kind of effect on us. Cricket has that kind of effect on me. Cricket is not just a game. Nor is it just a lifestyle. It is life.

So therefore, I told my self not to let my habits die off. Not to give away the biggest passion of my life. To make sure cricket stays part of me, here in Canada, as it has been for as long as I can remember. For that, I have to thank all the generous folk behind the web servers on the numerous Live Cricket Streaming sites that I go on! If not for them, I'd be left to ball-by-ball text commentary to follow the games! Not that I don't go on live text commentary while I watch the game in the other tab, but you know what I mean.

Well, now that I've given you my background, we can start off here. My next post will be about why I write about cricket, and what my credentials are for doing so. Once I get that out of the way, let's get to the business end. There is a test in Hobart that begins in 44 hours, and I don't want to miss that!

Before I go, here's my favorite cricket memory for today:
Arjuna Ranatunga's 131* vs India at the R. Premadasa in 1997. The first cricket match I ever watched at a stadium!

Adios!

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