Lung Ho!

It's time we put the stadium back to good use. bcci can keep the clubhouse. Let's give the grounds and the stands to Bombay University, which is desperately short of playing fields. Better still, turn it into a public park under the Land Acquisition Act. Congested south Mumbai desperately needs a lung; our matrons, determined joggers, would welcome another venue where they can display their imported sneakers. Seeing them huffing, puffing and flapping their arms like pregnant penguins is a sight you don't easily forget.

On the subject of cricket, I am afraid in a couple of decades the game will not be played with any seriousness anywhere outside South Asia. The recent slump of the West Indies is largely due to the growing popularity of American sports in the Caribbean, especially basketball, at the expense of cricket. Most white South Africans would have migrated by then, taking cricket with them. Now even the English upper classes prefer soccer. County cricket is dying. New Zealand was always rugby country and Australia is heading in that direction.

But Indians will continue to play cricket. It's not very strenuous. More important, we detest games where one actually has to make physical contact with opponents. It's the caste thing.