Then and Now

Looking back i feel it was all very kiddish, but then I was a kid then . The first world cup that I followed was the 1992 one and still remember how mad I was about it . I ripped the schedule from the Hindu days before the start and began writing my prediction for each game . I think I wanted West Indies to win the world cup but lose just the match against India .As always with the Indian team what happened was quite the opposite . I woke up 4 O’ Clock in the morning only to see India drubbed by West Indies . Also got most of my predictions wrong and to add to all that Pakistan won the cup . But then it was all fun and also it was just the beginning of my cricket madness . It continued on from there to 1996 when Vinod Kambli returned crying in the semi finals against Srilanka and then on to 1999 when the world cup started exactly on the day I finished my last of the many engineering entrance exams . I remember throwing the books and rushing to my grandma’ s house to see the match on the new big TV . I didn’t return home till the world cup was over during which I think I read every word of every sports magazine available on the stands, something that I can never do with my school books .
And now, just yesterday I knew that the World Cup is starting next month . I still don’t know on when it is starting exactly , what are the teams participating , how long it is going to be and who all are in the Indian Team . I realized that its been very long since I watched a match and cant even remember the last time I sat through an entire match . To be frank I am not one of the cool dudes who stopped watching cricket just because it is more of an Indian sport now and started following Tennis , F1 , league football and NBA . I was following all these sports even when I was madly following cricket and still follow most of them except NBA though not as much as before.Cricket has always been my favourite sport and always will be . But then unconsciously I have stopped following it . Looks like sports(read as cricket , I am an Indian) has taken a backseat in my life .What has taken the front seat? God Knows!.
So my favourite time is back and I am gonna compensate for all the missed cricket . As one of my college mates rightly put it “The World is not enough but the World Cup certainly is!”