Losses, controversies, politics, corruption, and egoistical people running the Pakistani cricket board (PCB) are all part and parcel of the Pakistani cricket. The coaches, captains and players all enter the press conference rooms and replay the same run of the mill script of “doing better in the next game”, “the batting/bowling let us down”, “boys did not play well” so on and so forth.
Pakistan’s cricket coach Waqar Younis went a further and gave a new statement that they are “preparing for the World Cup”. If a team’s whose ultimate goal is to capture the World Cup title is “preparing” like this then God bless the game.
Anyways, while watching the match between Pakistan and South Africa, the official International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) World Cup song “Waka Waka (This time for Africa)” by Columbian singer Shakira was heard being played in the background.
There is nothing wrong with that but I just had one innocent thought. If it is a cricket match and is being played in the hot and humid state of the rich and mighty Arabs, then what is the point of playing a song that “officially” represented football and Ms. Shakira keeps on repeating “this time for Africa”. Africa and Arabia are two different Worlds.
But the whole point of playing music in stadiums is to make the spectators enjoy the three–four hours that they are devoting to a particular match. Not to forget, if the match is of Pakistan then their supporters should at least listen to good, relevant and cricket-friendly tunes.
The catch here is that there are no cricket tunes. In contrast to FIFA World Cup and Euro Cup, who have their own official songs. Let alone a song, there are entire albums dedicated to sing and clap–along songs.
They take mainstream, popular singers and artists to feature in the campaign. Due to this, the “non-supporters” of the game would automatically get attracted and the viewership would increase. The game, media even countries can benefit from such an exposure.
Cricket stadiums can appear to be very boring and it doesn’t make an exciting game to watch as compared to football or baseball matches or even tennis, where the players are making enough noise.
Except for rivalry cricket matches between India and Pakistan or the Ashes, the cricket stadiums do not give the same feeling as football stadiums with the noise of the now banned Vuvuzelas, the resounding anthems and the enchanting stadium waves.
The question arises that when cricket is being promoted all around the world as a glamorous and entertaining form of sport, then why has the International Cricket Council (ICC) failed to hire musicians to create a music piece which can be played throughout cricket stadiums and would represent the spirit of the game.
The Indian Premier League (IPL), the domestic cricket tournament of India saw cheerleaders and official songs for the teams. The same could be done for every cricket match, who could give a separate identity to the teams as well as be pleasing to the ears.
As the cricket World gears up for the World Cup in early 2011, it gives ample opportunity to the hosts India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to boost their culture and show the World what they are all about.
A successful example was set by China whose summer Olympics 2009 suddenly boosted their economy after a stupendous arrangement of games. They also utilized their singers, who sang all the official theme songs. There are many great Indian, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi singers, who could surely come up with a tune embodying their culture.
Cricket also needs its own identity where the fans and supporters can have their own anthem, which they can shout and sing in the stadiums and make their voices heard far and beyond.
