The Art of Cricket
What happens when the game is not played where it is supposed to be?
It leads to innovation and creativity. If the game goes beyond the ground, Then?
Games On Paper
Books in various genres also include ‘sports’. Sports on paper may be inspirational autobiography of world-class players, tips to play well, quiz books on different games, books enumerating the rules and regulations. These books form the theoretical part of the game and are factual like ‘The Art of Cricket’ – by Sir Don Bradman which is considered to be the best cricket manual irrespective of its age.
Till date several books have been published on the ground breaking Indian win in 1983 Cricket World Cup and are on hot-market.
Works done by cricket historians and couple of writers on paper has become successful worldwide.
From cricket now to tennis, I would quote Andre Agassi’s Open to be the best when it comes to confession; where he had mentioned that in the early eighties what he had on his head was ‘wig’ not his real hair!
A picture speaks a thousand words, then half a thousand picture would speak?
‘A Game to Love’ is a very popular book on tennis by Mike Powell; a sports photographer has published the book with more than 500 colourful, alive, evocative images of the game. It celebrates the soul of tennis with the images.
There is no scarce for books describing the game and its rules.
Last but not the least, our own ‘Mahabarat’, the epic is based on deep, intertwined philosophy and war. But what caused the war was a sport! A game, a gambling with dice.
Games on paper have inspired many.
My favorite is Quidditch in Harry Potter!
Games on celluloid
Next to politics it is the cinema. Films based on sports have been highly urging. From my memory I could bring movies like ‘Rocky’ based on boxing from Stallone’s production house which created a festival and followers for the game. The movie came in five installments.
‘Invictus’ is one movie that has been taken for an integrity cause and happened in reality. Nelson Mandela during his early leadership used the game ‘rugby’ to beat the racism prevailing in Africa with the help of rugby union.
An animated movie starring Jordan, What else is needed?? Space Jam, a feast for basketball lovers of all ages attracted them to world of non-existing creatures the Bugs Bunny family.
Many top pictures like Million Dollar Baby, The Karate Kid, The Runner and so on fall under this.
Indian moivies Iqbal, Lagaan, Chak De India! were all mass productions and award winning pictures.
It is not that they choose the genre ‘sports’ because they are lack of scripts it is because of the power the game has, be it any game rugby to racing, tennis to taekwondo, basketball to billiards it has the supremacy to move the masses.
The power always goes to the players, team, media and the fans.
Cheers!
Tags: A Game To Love, Andre Agassi, Chak De India, Harry Potter, Iqbal, Lagaan, Mike Powell, Open, Quidditch, Sir Don Bradman, Sports, The Art Of Cricket
