More than just pride at stake for India

What does the World Cup mean to India? I am being neither puerile nor mushy when I write that a billion Indian hearts pulsate with unfathomable passion as the countdown to the biggest cricket show on this planet gathers pace.

Evidence of this is available in Mumbai's buses, Kolkata's Metro, dhabas of Punjab, IT campuses in Bengaluru, Chennai and Pune, backwaters of Alleppy; in lobbies of five-star hotels to the smallest chai shops that dot the country's road and rail network; in beauty parlours, sports bars, film studios; in the mass media and social networks.

Indeed, across the length and breadth of the country, across age groups and genders, from the slums on the fringes of massive urbanisation to the hallowed portals of Parliament, the one issue hogging maximum mind space and time is cricket and the impending World Cup.

That India is manic-obsessive about cricket is now a time-worn cliché, but even that falls short of capturing the present mood.

Perhaps the classic line from sociologist Ashis Nandy's treatise, The Tao of Cricket, can help put this in perspective.

"Cricket is an Indian game invented by the English," wrote Nandy, and this has never sounded truer or better manifest than now.

Big deal

The mere fact of hosting a World Cup here is of course neither new nor novel, so what's the big deal you might ask?

India has jointly hosted the World Cup earlier (twice in fact, 1987 and 1996), but the fervour this time is unprecedented, triggered by a sense of pride that transcends just the following for the game; it has to do with the identity of India in the new millennium.

In the decade and-a-half since 1996, India's global status, impelled by a rapidly growing economy, has been dramatically redefined.

In many ways, therefore, this World Cup — as was also the case with the Commonwealth Games — is seen to showcase not just India as the home of cricket, but also a major world power.

I'll leave other, more knowledgeable experts to dilate on this aspect and focus instead on the cricket, which is no less compelling, and has been given an extra, exhilarating dimension by the phenomena of Sachin Tendulkar which will surely haunt this World Cup if the ad campaigns, television talk shows, campus debates and drawing room conversations are anything to go by.

There has been no greater player from India, no bigger star in any walk of life, nobody more adulated or revered.

In his 21 years in international cricket, Tendulkar has not only broken almost every batting record, but come to epitomise India's rise to eminence in the game as also the country's aspirations heading into the New Age.

He has played in five such tournaments earlier and the only award missing from his gargantuan collection is the World Cup. By common consensus, this should be Tendulkar's last attempt to correct this aberration (though he himself has not given any such indication), and it seems that the entire country has rallied behind him, willing his teammates to do it this time "just for Sachin". This is not just a wave of popular sentiment, but a tsunami.

It's not only the hoopla around him which makes Tendulkar a central figure in this World Cup though: he is also the lynchpin of India's thrust to win a title that has eluded them since that melodramatic final on June 25, 1983 when Kapil Dev's team upset the mighty West Indies and changed the face of cricket.

The highest run-getter in the one-day game as well as the history of World Cup cricket, Tendulkar sits atop an Indian line-up that is strong in batting and bowling (I do have concerns about the fielding), and will obviously benefit hugely from knowledge of home pitches and conditions.

Despite the brouhaha that followed the team selection the Indian squad is well-balanced, loaded with talent and perhaps, more importantly, has the gumption that some of the earlier teams lacked. There is also home support, which will be huge, but that could be a double-edged sword because the pressure of expectations can sometimes become too much to handle.

Ayaz Memon is one of India's foremost cricket writers.