Sport plays a vital role in shaping our personality. It lifts our mood thus leading to a healthy  and enjoyable life. It washes away jealousy and prejudice if taken  in a good sprit.  In place like ours,  scope for many activities is not much. Football and cricket come handy, but, then it is not always on the professional lines. But  natural for us to get glued to TV screens. Cricket is a passion for all of us. The recent cricket World Cup matches have been a thrill. Talking of winning and losing  could be a matter of chance, but  those who played seriously, did so. That does not matter. Matches are played and one party has to lose. What matters is how you play it. I may win  today and it is just possible I may lose it the other day.
Controlling our behaviour matters the most. An uncontrollable excitement after taking a wicket is  not a good quality of a sportsman. Showing  fists, shouting slangs, pushing  each other just is not good. Vettori lost the game, but that does not mean he is not a good player. Shahid Afridi could not make more runs certainly does he takes a wicket, he just raises both his arms in such a cute manner. It just was not the day for Dilshan and other players, but the amount of discipline and decency on and off the field by the Sri Lankans is praise worthy sportsmanship  calls for quality discipline. There is no enemy on the field, it is just a game-to be taken in a good sprit.
Watching players like Federer and Nadal is always  such a great  pleasure. They win gracefully an they lose gracefully. One can not miss what Fedrer has to say, it is such a wonderful experience to listen to him with such    decent body language. Same applies to chess champions Vishwanathan Anand. What a poised and serious attitude. No glamour, no pomp and show. Saina Nehwal is another example of high morals and simplicity.
It is true cricket  has more audience than other games. It is a household game. Perhaps we are emotionally attached to this game. That could be the reason which makes us know  and learn the average and best of each and every player. The final game saw many ups and down in the first overs, but was because of Gautam Gambirs consistency and cool mind that worked. Our children should take these positive aspects  and let negative ones be done  away with. Who would expect Reyaz to  bowl so brilliantly. But he did it that too in a decent manner without making any noise about it. Let game remain a game and let us extract all good things from it. We should not say that Sri Lankans century went in vain. We must appreciate the best played balls. We salute all the players  who played their best.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 6 Apr 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 6 Apr 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 7 Apr 2011 00:00:00 IST