“I have no issue with answering how much cricket I have played.” Not too long ago Sanjay Manjrekar tried to shut down Harsha Bhogle by saying he hadn’t played any first-class cricket. Here is what Bhogle said on the subject recently…
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00:00And that is why I hate it, absolutely hate it, when people give war parallels to cricket.
00:08I cannot stand those promos which talk about, jaan ki baazi lagayenge and yeh karenge and
00:13I don't know, it's a game.
00:31I played cricket for my university here.
00:33It's a very uncomfortable truth for a lot of people when they come to know that I played
00:37university and senior division cricket.
00:39It's a very uncomfortable truth because it's a good story to say that he never held a bat
00:45in his hand.
00:46I wasn't a great player, but I knew it as I keep telling people I played enough cricket
00:53in Hyderabad to understand the emotion of the game.
00:55I have no issue with people asking me how much cricket I've played because we live in
01:01a vibrant democracy.
01:02People can have their opinions.
01:03There's only one way and that is in the court of the public.
01:09What I do not like is that we don't give non-international test players a go because eventually we are
01:16storytellers.
01:17We are not instructors.
01:18A commentator is not an instructor, a commentator is not a physics teacher.
01:22A commentator is a storyteller who has been given the extraordinary privilege of telling
01:26people who are not at the ground what is happening there.
01:29So we are storytellers.
01:31So the storytellers can come from anywhere, but there is not a single non-cricketer player
01:39is being given an opportunity these days and hanging in there is a great value in life
01:43itself, which is what you're allowed to do in test match cricket.
01:48You can't hang in there in a one-day game.
01:51Dhoni does sometimes, but he scares us, but then he covers up afterwards.
01:57But watching Dhoni is like watching a movie or waiting up, up and then he finally goes.
02:01Someone told me, if you want to be an objective broadcaster, you cannot be close to players.
02:07But it was very difficult at that time because that was a fabulous generation.
02:11But Sachin, no, I could talk on Sachin for three hours.
02:15All I'll tell you about Sachin was Sachin was the master of the game, but behaved like
02:19the servant of the game.
02:27It was, it was an unmatched collection of human beings in our cricket, Rahul Dravid,
02:33VVS Lakshman, Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, what, what giants that they also were good
02:40batsmen and bowlers was something else.
02:42But if India came out of match fixing and the scandal around them, it was because of
02:46outstanding people who are at the center of our cricket.
02:48And yet at the end of a test match, what happens?
02:54People shake hands.
02:56People shake hands and go.
02:57That is the best thing.
02:58And I hope that never goes out of a cricket because cricket is only a game.
03:03Sometimes we assign it way too much importance in society.
03:07It's just a game.
03:09It's nothing else.
03:10And that is why I hate it.
03:12Absolutely hate it.
03:13When people give war parallels to cricket, I cannot stand those promos which talk about
03:19jaan ki baasi lagayenge and yeh karenge and go, no, it's a game.
03:24At the end of the day, everyone goes back to their hotel rooms.
03:27Everyone goes back home.
03:28The sun still rises and you meet your family and your friends and your dear ones the next
03:32morning.
03:33Doesn't happen in war.
03:34So let's not demean war.
03:36Let's take a pledge.
03:37We will never ever equate sport to a war.
03:39It isn't.
03:40It's only a game.
03:42At the end of the day, you shake hands, you go back, say, what did I do wrong?
03:45Let me try hard.
03:46And it's the best way to live.
03:48While you're on the ground, you don't give an inch, not an inch conceded.
03:53You don't have to tell people anything because your aggression and your power and your determination
03:58is shown in your performance, not in your vocabulary.