Watching a cricket match at my uncle's place was a serious group activity. People were seated in certain seats, specific positions and mostly, people didn't speak much unless it was to hurl some choice abuse or give unwanted advice. If a person was standing up when our team heaved a big six over the fence that person would not be permitted to sit. If someone was fetching water and our bowler claimed a wicket; that someone would be consigned to water-fetching duty for the remainder of the match. You know what I'm talking about.
“Sir, by any chance were you watching the match today?” asked one tweet. So after India lost the T20 against Australia, he promised not to watch the next two.
You were wearing that particular shirt when we won. Now how can you not wear that ‘lucky’ shirt for all five subsequent matches of the series! You owe it to your team.
Yuvraj has a fave jersey number (12) and a lucky thread, Dhoni has a particular pair of gloves, Zaheer Khan had a lucky kerchief, Sachin Tendulkar would always put on his left pad first – for luck! There are many other such idiosyncrasies that players have!
A lizard falling on your head is good luck. A glass breaking also brings good luck. Being a bird-bathroom is also wonderful apparently!
M S Dhoni is always seen collecting stumps after a match. One story says he does this to maintain his own record of wins. Another story goes that he does this to collect enough stumps to help a friend erect a fence around this house – 320 to be precise.
Maybe 19 is a lucky number, maybe his wife's birthday is on the 19th (but how does he remember the month then?) Maybe both are true.
An itchy palm means that one will earn (or lose) money. A twitchy eye can also apparently impact the fortunes of a cricket team playing in another continent.
So for the next match, there will be those who will refuse to budge from a particular seat or may prevent others from doing so (even to go to the loo). The lucky socks, shirt, pajama, scarf will be duly brought out. For some of us, nimbu-mirchi does the trick… so that nazar na lage!
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