Bhaijaan
Hall of Famer
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2011
- Runs
- 61,079
- Post of the Week
- 1
As a cricket fan who fell in love with the game during the 1999 World Cup, I had one of those moments recently that hit you out of nowhere as it struck me that the 1999 World Cup, the tournament that introduced me to the magic of cricket, is now further in the past than the inaugural 1975 World Cup was back then. Let that sink in for a moment.
When I had started watching cricket as a kid, the 1975 World Cup felt like ancient history, an era of flared pants, red balls & white kits, grainy footage that belonged to a different world. The cricket that was barely played a couple of decades ago felt like from 200 years ago back then, that someone like a Harbhajan Singh or Shahid Afridi is now as vintage as Gordon Greenidge or Allan Border were back then.
What I saw as “modern cricket” back then is now the vintage cricket of today. The inaugural IPLs, BBLs that felt like the dawn of a new era now seem awkwardly old style. Chris Gayle had to make it worse for me when he turned up for a legends game recently looking older than he should. Ricky Ponting has become nicer. Shahid Afridi looks like the wisest person on a TV panel these days.
It feel’s strange because to me, those memories don’t feel old yet. I can still vividly picture Klusener smashing boundaries with ice in his veins and see the drama of that heartbreaking South Africa-Australia semifinal like it happened yesterday, I can still see Shoaib Akhtar steaming in with his long hair flying and shattering stumps, and Shane Warne spinning magic out of nothing. I can still hear Tony Greig’s voice booming in commentary at Tendulkar’s twin desert storms. I am still shell shocked with that Douglas Marilier freak knock or when Abdul Razzaq almost won an unwinnable match for Pakistan in NZ with the bat.
But time it seems has quietly marched on. The kids who are starting to watch cricket today will look at 1999 with the same curiosity and detachment that I had when I looked at the black-and-white photos of the 1975 World Cup. They’ll see it as a bygone era, an age of slower games, heavier bats, and simpler times. They will see the footage and probably be like Meh!
It’s a bittersweet feeling, really. The game we loved and the heroes we idolized are becoming a part of history. The jerseys, the graphics, even the playing styles all of it now carries the weight of time. But perhaps that’s the beauty of cricket and life in general. It doesn’t just stay with you in the present; it becomes a time capsule, a reminder of who you were when you first felt love. And maybe, just maybe, someone out there will look at a clip of that 1999 World Cup and feel the same awe that I felt when I first stumbled upon the footage of Kapil Dev lifting the trophy in 1983 or the legends of 1975 battling it out in whites. Because cricket is timeless in that way.
So here’s to Cricketing Nistalgia of the 90s and all the cricket that shaped us as fans. It may now be part of the vintage collection, but for us, it will always be alive in our hearts.
When I had started watching cricket as a kid, the 1975 World Cup felt like ancient history, an era of flared pants, red balls & white kits, grainy footage that belonged to a different world. The cricket that was barely played a couple of decades ago felt like from 200 years ago back then, that someone like a Harbhajan Singh or Shahid Afridi is now as vintage as Gordon Greenidge or Allan Border were back then.
What I saw as “modern cricket” back then is now the vintage cricket of today. The inaugural IPLs, BBLs that felt like the dawn of a new era now seem awkwardly old style. Chris Gayle had to make it worse for me when he turned up for a legends game recently looking older than he should. Ricky Ponting has become nicer. Shahid Afridi looks like the wisest person on a TV panel these days.
It feel’s strange because to me, those memories don’t feel old yet. I can still vividly picture Klusener smashing boundaries with ice in his veins and see the drama of that heartbreaking South Africa-Australia semifinal like it happened yesterday, I can still see Shoaib Akhtar steaming in with his long hair flying and shattering stumps, and Shane Warne spinning magic out of nothing. I can still hear Tony Greig’s voice booming in commentary at Tendulkar’s twin desert storms. I am still shell shocked with that Douglas Marilier freak knock or when Abdul Razzaq almost won an unwinnable match for Pakistan in NZ with the bat.
But time it seems has quietly marched on. The kids who are starting to watch cricket today will look at 1999 with the same curiosity and detachment that I had when I looked at the black-and-white photos of the 1975 World Cup. They’ll see it as a bygone era, an age of slower games, heavier bats, and simpler times. They will see the footage and probably be like Meh!
It’s a bittersweet feeling, really. The game we loved and the heroes we idolized are becoming a part of history. The jerseys, the graphics, even the playing styles all of it now carries the weight of time. But perhaps that’s the beauty of cricket and life in general. It doesn’t just stay with you in the present; it becomes a time capsule, a reminder of who you were when you first felt love. And maybe, just maybe, someone out there will look at a clip of that 1999 World Cup and feel the same awe that I felt when I first stumbled upon the footage of Kapil Dev lifting the trophy in 1983 or the legends of 1975 battling it out in whites. Because cricket is timeless in that way.
So here’s to Cricketing Nistalgia of the 90s and all the cricket that shaped us as fans. It may now be part of the vintage collection, but for us, it will always be alive in our hearts.
