Over the course of more than a decade of writing on sports – a time that has coincided with the explosion of international cricket in India – I have covered only one one-day cricket match with 'visitors'. During this time I have concentrated on football. I have reported on the dismal standards and the doping scandals, taken lonely treks into the Punjab heartland on investigative beats, explored the socio-political role of football in India's Northeast, covered Tibet's defiance towards China in the form of a ragtag national football team, and discovered that Britain's first expatriate footballer could have been an indentured Indian labourer from the Caribbean. As far as cricket is concerned, there have been endless hours at the copy desk, cleaning up messy stories by self-important (and mostly touring) cricket correspondents. In all of this, I can count only one game of cricket in terms of a reporting assignment – admittedly a dismal record.
But this is not a lament. It is, rather, a celebration of a choice. I have nothing against cricket – far from it. Nowadays, I might not haul myself out of bed at first light to see England take guard against Australia in the Ashes Down Under, nor do I sit bleary-eyed (but ever alert) long into the night to watch games in the once-distant West Indies. But all of that is in the past. Since Australia's Shane Warne and the West Indies' Brian Lara retired in quick succession in recent months, much of international cricket's edge seems to have left with them. But my decision not to cover cricket long predates this recent slump.