The Hindu Business Line : It's a slice of the cricket, its spirit, for Indians in the US

GUYS calling in sick on India match days, theatres screening matches, kids playing gully cricket, celebrations after the victory over Pakistan ... so, what's new?

Well, all of this is happening in North Bergen and Metuchen in New Jersey, Seattle, and the Bay Area in California. This World Cup ranks very high on hype and commercialisation, but it also ranks up there for wide impact: from Dallas to Delaware, fans are skipping appointments, using up precious vacation days, cancelling all social engagements, and installing $300-dish satellites at home or driving several hours to a theatre that is showing the matches.

In North Bergen, the sole cineplex, Cineplaza, is showing the matches live and fans - sometimes in the hundreds - are driving in from as far as Stamford, Connecticut, a good three hours away. The day matches begin at 3 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, and day/night matches begin three hours later, but that hasn't stopped them from coming. For the India-Pakistan match on March 1, a sell out-crowd filled Cineplaza's several theatres and spilled into the lobby, and the theatre owner hired extra security. The Indians outnumbered the Pakistani fans, but both sides cheered wildly, waved signs and chanted slogans. For those who do not wish to drive in the dead of night, there is the Net - BBC, cricinfo.com and rediff.com are popular sites - and the radio: WTTM, an ethnic radio station in Metuchen, N.J., is airing "live interactive updates", and listeners call in with comments, questions and jokes, The station, which claims a listener base of 450,000, fields more than 200 calls during a match, according to a source.

Across the country in Seattle, home to a large Indian population because of Microsoft, the scene is pretty much the same: Indians discuss match statistics in the cafeteria, in conference halls, and in elevators, and use Instant Messenger to exchange scores and comments. Here, the day matches begin at 12 midnight, and day/night matches three hours later - grocery stores and video shops rent out recorded matches.

There is also cricket on the streets: in a quiet neighbourhood in Sammamish, near Redmond, two Indian kids began a game, and soon attracted the attention of the American dads down the road. "They were curious and interested - so that's a positive outcome of India's performance," said Mr Ramana Prasad, a resident, and father of the kids.

In California's Bay Area, Indian restaurants such as Bombay Garden, in Fremont, stayed open all night during the India-Pakistan match; the youngest fan was a two-week-old baby, according to sources. Even in hard-core rodeo country, Dallas, people are streaming into theatres like Everest and multiplexes like Amar, Akbar, Anthony, where the India-Pakistan match was shown at $10/per person.

The India-Australia match was a big draw, with about 700 people in the theatre dancing, cheering and beating drums for every Indian run. There was much dejection after India lost, and much celebration after the India-Pakistan match, said Ms K. Suman, a resident, originally from Chennai. "Watching a match thousands and thousands of miles away from home, and amidst hundreds of spectators - all of them Indians - was an experience to cherish all one's life," she said.

The mainstream media and some local newspapers have also taken note of the World Cup hysteria, and have basic pointers for those readers who think a bouncer is a beefy man keeping order in bars. "Cricket is somewhat like baseball, only longer in duration. Like America's pastime, it features lengthy lulls and short bursts of furious action," said a report in The Star Ledger of New Jersey. "On big match days, the streets of Mumbai are every bit as empty as the Menlo Park Mall on Super Bowl Sunday," it informed.

Even The Wall Street Journal recently ran an A1 piece - the widely read middle column on page 1 - on Jagmohan Dalmiya, leading with Sourav Ganguly's shirt-waving antic last year. The writer contended that while cricket is not even a blip on the average American sports fan's radar screen now, several matches of the World Cup 2007 are scheduled for Miami. Plenty of time to learn about bouncers, the reverse swing and the Great Indian Huddle.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
`Shadowlines' gets UGC video award

Is it bowling vs bombing on TV?

Saas-Bahu serials go to foreign locales

Kalamandalam tour package on offer

It's a slice of the cricket, its spirit, for Indians in the US

Corporates pitch in to cheer cricket team