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D. Murali

IT always happens in Kerala Express, for instance. You may be travelling in a bay that is full of Maloos and have to endure Malayalam throughout without knowing a word.

A few survival tips that could help are: `Vellam' for water, if you want to drink off your neighbour's Bisleri; `madhi' for enough, if he is offering you an extra handful of banana chips and you are not too favourably inclined to coconut oil; and `manasilai' to mean understood.

During World Cup season, the situation is no different, because if you are cricket-illiterate, the ambience at the workplace can be stiflingly alien. There comes the importance of being armed with a few stock comments to deploy when need arises.

Situation 1: The match started a few minutes ago, and already all eyes are glued to the TV. You are the odd man out at work and you detest all that noise from the other side. If somebody comes from there, ask him: "Who's batting?" It would be stupid to ask, "Who is playing with whom?" even if you didn't know. The answer you would get may be something like, "Sourav and Sachin." And that tells you India is battling another team.

Now, you want to know who is the bowling team — assuming that you know at least this much that when one team bowls and fields, another bats. A smart question would be, "What are the chances?" Your friend might say, "It is Australia, for sure." And he moves off. More than that, if some dumber creature came up to you and asked, who is batting, you have the answer already.

Situation 2: At tea, the Indian team has already lost some prize wickets and everybody is desolate and so returning to their tasks. Don't anger them with a flat question like "Will India win?" Rather you can ask, "What is the likely final score?" A possible answer is, "150," after which your colleague might go on to reason, "If Sachin scores a century, then we could go beyond that." Here, you should interrupt, "But the runner has to stay." That much you would have learnt after seeing Lagaan. "We are at 67 for 6," he would continue and analyse the batting performance of each player and all that adds to your knowledge.

Situation 3: A group of seemingly knowledgeable people are dissecting the match. One says, "That 3rd run was unwarranted." Another joins, "If we have a Vaas to do a hat-trick, we may still win the match." Yet another opines, "Our pace is not enough." The wise one there might add: "Remember, how Kapil bowled 4th ball in the last over in 1989." It could make no difference to you if he said 1889, because the numbers he quotes might appear as strange as saying 212 ITR 453. Yet, you hang out there, because you want to belong to the team (as they say in companies), nodding at expert comments. Don't blurt out, "Who bowled the 60th over?" or, "who batted fifteenth?" Even if you are otherwise ignorant about the game, you should know the basic stuff — such as whether the match is an ODI or test, the number of overs and the team size. As they say, it is better to keep quiet and let people think you are a fool, rather than open it and prove it.

Much of what many talk about cricket might be crap, but who cares because anything goes when one billion people put their pride in a dozen chaps who end up making everybody look foolish.

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