The game seems a bit like porn, bigger is always better

Attempting to escape the IPL, I have discovered in myself unsuspected reserves of devious ingeniousness. This single-minded effort to remain aloof is trying. But I am trying, writes Soumya Bhattacharya.

Attempting to escape the IPL, I have discovered in myself unsuspected reserves of devious ingeniousness. This single-minded effort to remain aloof is trying. But I am trying.

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Going to a bar or a restaurant when a game is on is out of the question. Staying in the office when a game is on is equally tough. All the TV sets in the office are tuned to the IPL. What does a man do?

Having to not go to the office on Sunday helped. Eating and drinking in the inviolable sanctity of my own home (my castle, my castle), I decided to do what — I am guessing, but I suspect it’s an informed guess — no hardcore IPL fan would do: I reread Vladimir Nabokov’s Pnin. (Blurb from Graham Greene on the cover: “Hilariously funny and of a sadness.”)

Having thus quietly chuckled my way through much of the 4pm game between Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore, I turned my attention to sport on television. I watched Manchester United beat Fulham 3-0 at Old Trafford.

Wayne Rooney slipped, slithered, galloped and scored two ferocious goals. With the sort of form Rooney is in, England could have more than a sniff of a chance at the World Cup in South Africa in June.

Finally, loaded with enough alcohol for me to see things from a different perspective, I focused (blearily, wearily) on Deccan Chargers v Chennai Super Kings. Gibbs and Symonds clouted the ball with atavistic fury. Why, in this sort of cricket, is the efficacy of a shot determined by how far the ball travels? The thrilling stats of those sixes — 78m, 82m — beg exclamation marks.

It must have been the whisky, but the game seemed a bit like porn: humourless, shorn of a narrative, and bigger always being better. More on those lines later. For now, onwards…