Many thanks are due to the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) for carrying on the nation’s work amid the horrific pandemic. It has ensured that wages of these cricket workers, this class of brave Covid warriors, turn up for work every day, unflinchingly, at grave risk to their own health and well-being. For yours, and my sake. I am deeply touched by this gesture. It can’t be easy suffering the bio-bubble—sports’ own version of collective, preventive isolation—only so that you and I can feel lighter during our own hours of deep despair.

For those who ask that the BCCI unburden its coffers in aid of those suffering and dying on the streets gasping for air, for those running helter-skelter for ambulances, medicines, hospital beds, hearses, a place in the morgue or a spot to burn or bury, know that that this is beyond the BCCI. How do I know that? Well, they are about cricket, not care. Their business model is visible for all to see.

So, we have much to thank the BCCI for. While large corporations have rejigged their operations in the current context at considerable inconvenience to its stakeholders, banks shrink daily operations, schools and colleges shut to safeguard the next generation, hospitals scramble to cope with the steady background of ambulance sirens and overflowing admissions, factories scale down operations and stare at a precarious future, daily wage earners stare vacantly pondering their options in the midst of gross uncertainty, we have the steady ship of the BCCI, sailing forth. Stronger the wave, the more determined it is.

Well, some of these cricket workers may collapse. A small blip, maybe in an otherwise cheerful story. India is a country with a vast bench strength. So, it shouldn’t matter. There will be ‘benefit’ matches that will follow in memory of those who have suffered or departed. For those still in the game, there must be oxygen bars, exclusive labs for testing, a ‘home away from home’ for self-isolation, chartered aircraft on stand-by and travel cordons for team buses covering the airport-hotel-stadium.

Perhaps it is time to declare cricket an essential service. It is the pride of the nation. We cannot afford its disruption. Millions look to it for their daily succour. For the emperor, we have a palace coming up. For a young prince, a little something to dedicate himself to, to learn from and eventually grow to fill big boots.  

The gods first watched amused as we and our leaders blundered and blustered, then averted their eyes as stupidity and disease took over and have since taken leave when we refused to learn from our follies and help ourselves.

Meanwhile, the patron saints smile on the BCCI as it serves the country, tempted to play God and dismiss those who sound a warning.

Image from Flickr; “Cricket as art” (CC BY 2.0) by It’s No Game.