Cricket Of The Stars Poem by Madathil Rajendran Nair

Today
Two giant nations are to meet
Eyeball to eyeball
On a foreign ground

Media made big business out of it
They called it the Clash Of The Titans
The steely determination of India
That shames the plants of Jamshedpur
And the ferocious black might of the Indies
Running amok rampaging
In a run-hunt spree

Astrologers made hay
While the Sun of the zodiac shone
His way along the heavens
They had predictions even
Of the exact runs each side would make
No matter if they erred
Who would remember
When the fight was over

People of the two nations
Nay of the whole world
Sat pinned to their televisions
Forgetting their roles
As father, mother, son, daughter
What a tragedy
If a game hijacks
Human felicity
And if a hungry child cries
Deprived of its usual dose of milk

The steel came first
Rigid as he should be
And ducked his way back to pavilion
The black titan roared
Made four and that was the end
He ran back to where he came from
No matter what records he had broken

And everyone who witnessed the scene
Said it was all in the stars
And that consoled the astrologers
Who had their maths widely off mark

And then the tail-enders came
Hit the ball hither and thither
In panic, had narrow escapes
Which were attributed to human error
After all humans are to err
If the stars are the deciding factor


And at the end of the day one team won
Just on the sheer power of the tail-enders
Whoever they were no one bothers

Don’t’ ask me the name of the winning team
If it was all in the heavens
Why don’t you ask the stars
They are there gaping at you night long
In a stupor of indifference that to you rightly belong
When you play the game of the great Lord
As though you are at London's Lord's