As a kid who had to fed a daily dose of ‘galli’-cricket, I often wondered what would happen when I grew up and had to start going to work. Would I then not be able to play this hallowed game of cricket? And what then would happen to watching all those cricket matches on TV? Will offices provide a television on which all those who are interested will be able to at least check the score, if not watch the game in entirety?
In school, we had one television on which only the school’s PT teacher could watch the live cricket matches. The students, and there were many of us, could barely sneak a peek before being shooed away by the man himself. However, he wasn’t as heartless as I make him sound; there was a generous bone in him as well. He would have a blackboard installed outside the room that telecasted the game, and at the end of every second or the third over, he would ensure that the cricket scores were updated.
For me, that was the first experience of ‘live’ scoreboards at work, and the thrill it gave me every time it got updated was immense. I remember having ‘watched’ the two games between India and England at Gwalior long back as a 12 or 13 year-old kid; and especially excited when India chased down a couple of mammoth totals!
Times have obviously changed today and my fear of having no access to cricket during work hours has been majorly overhauled. Cricket scorecards are available at dime a dozen, where as if one is technically inclined enough, one can watch the live streaming of cricket on many a websites.
Downloadable scorecard widgets, live cricket streaming, deferred live cricket streaming, online commentary amongst many of the other features were almost unthinkable some years back. Oh, for that matter, the extensive use of internet was unthinkable.
Today, it is a different world I live in from what I grew up in.
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