Get your Cricket .. When I look at the baseball "crazzies" around me in the US, yes I am talking about the manic Red Sox fans ( here and the movie Fever Pitch ) and others, I only look at them with an air of "how could they be so crazy to spend all that energy and time on what is essentially some middle aged men getting very rich being watched jumping and playing ? ". I did goto Fenway Park, here at Boston and although the atmosphere was great, it was still excessively slow and a boring, moronic way to spend an evening.However, I forget, in a time not long ago when I was in India, I was equally obsessed with a sport which has been called while being compared to Baseball, "Baseball on Valium" ( Robin Williams) and "Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended" (Shaw). So ofcourse its a "I grew up with the sport" thing, "once I know more of the sport, I know more of the strategies and the sport become more cerebral"...So I can cut the baseball freaks some slack.

Getting to the point however, it is very difficult to get any cricket here in the US. But I want my cricket. What to do ? What are the ways really ? In a similar way, as in our society, relative success is measured by your mode of transportation , so are the different ways of accessing cricket. There is the walking method, the Bajaj-Chetak method, the Maruti method and the Mercedes method.

first : The walking method. "F5" ( the refresh button ) is your friend, push it till your finger hurts a.k.a online cricket portals : Rediff, cricinfo.com, cricketnext.com and several others offer live scores on their websites in a text form. Some of them offer ball to ball commentary. Best of all, like walking, its free !

second: The Bajaj-Chetak method. Cricinfo has the live audio ball to ball commentary feed for the matches. It costs just about 6 bucks for the 5 India-SA matches for example. I subscribed to it while the second match was going on. It reminds you of the old Doordarshan-i style commentators, indeed if my ears can be trusted the Doordarshan specialist-I-do-all-sports commentator Anupam Ghulati was one of the commentators. Not the exquisite Richie Benaud or even the always interesting Harsha Bhogle level , but good enough.
But.. you really want to see the flourish of the bat, the swing of the ball.

third : The Maruti method :Wisden in conjuction with CricInfo( ? ), gives a service with which you can watch the live video on your computer.
But if you want the full deal, not just grainy pictures on your computer screen..

fourth : The Mercedes method : Use the satellites : ... DirectTV or Dish. Both of them offer various packages for a particular series, which are expensive but are the most obvious and best way if you already have the satellite channels. Lots of people buy the package and pool in with their friends to share the costs.

In addition there are a couple of superb blogs which track all the goings on in the Indian cricket world. Rediff's resident cricket expert, the superbly practical, cut-to-the-chase type Prem Paniker's Blog , Sight Screen and the vastly knowledgable, indomitable, King of Funda ( Swear to God, he know every possible "effect" or "law" that ever existed ) Amit Varma's creation on cricinfo : WicketToWicket.
And.. irrespective of wether I obsess about a slower sport, Baseball still sucks..

Update : I have heard that there might be a fifth cycle method : There is free audio commentary here but the commentary is bad.  ¶ permalink