Cricket has weathered many a winter and smothered many a vagary as a gentleman's game. Cricket was played during Spanish flu times also and UK's Wisden has not recorded any disruption in the progress of the cricket season in 1918 and 1919. But Cricket was severely restricted during World war 1 when all the major cricket playing nations were involved in the war.Cricket was also played less during World War II since England was involved in the war in full measure. But during all these periods of distress, Cricket was played in India with the least disruptions.
In fact, Wisden which has recorded death of English cricketers during World War 1 and 2 in all cricket playing nations , has not even mentioned one indian cricketer dying during Spanish flu days.This has to be seen in the light of total death toll of 17 million who died in india during Spanish flu years.
So even in 1918 and during World wars everybody around the world believed that India could somehow manage and survive humanitarian crises.
But this Covid 19 apart from being a dangerous pandemic , has also become a statistician's delight. of course not as enjoyable as cricket statistics. But still there is a everyday scorecard and the top states are vying with each other to remain on top with highest Covid 19 nos. Tracking, Tracing , Testing and Treating has given huge opportunities for multifold statistics and different tools to be employed across the country and the globe.
there are 3 day moving average, 5 day average, 7 day moving averages of tested, positive, discharged, active, deaths etc.etc. and colorful graphs of percentage growths of each one of them which compete with each other for eyeball grabs.
All the news channels have a separate ticker like in a Cricket match and hour to hour scores update pushes up your BP and make you a Covid patient , if not one already. Many people have stopped seeing news reporting in any channel and if they see one by mistake wait with bated breath,holding their chests with clenched fists as if hearing an India scorecard in a World cup cricket match.
Of course, the statisticians, epidemiologists, virologists give dire prediction every 15 days constantly reminding us that Covid nos. will surge and there will be a deluge in the next two months and this has been going on for the last 4 months.They have been predicting wildly exaggerated nos. and some statisticians can track all these predicted nos. of various agencies and give out the comparisons with the actuals. Such comparisons can provide another play with graphs, colours etc.
In all this round-robin play what is missing is character.Only few have been able to hold their forte not to rock the boat and rattle the gullible.Like lenders and banks looking for people with character to lend ,this pandemic has given a clarion call to those with character to come to the rescue. You can find people with capital, capacity to repay but finding a person with Character ,which is willingness to repay, is difficult. Character being a rare commodity in these days of rising NPAs, Bankers will nod their heads in agreement with me. In Cricket also we have seen people like Rahul Dravid, the Wall, VVS Lakshman, who have displayed great character to steady the ship, in crisis situations. Cricket captains like Mike Brearley of England, Pataudi and Dhoni of india, have shown stoic demeanour in the face of dire situations while leading their Teams. But a World cup winning cricket captain Imran Khan is the PM of Pakistan during this pandemic.But like in his heydays he is spitting venom at his rivals even outside the cricket arena. Is Cricket not making PM ,a gentleman?
However, I am not losing hope since our PM, himself, is a man who displays great Character even if he has not played cricket and is known to have sold & served Tea perhaps even during Tea breaks while others were busy playing Test Cricket!!
Be cautious and there is no need to spread fear and panic about both Covid and Economy! Drink hot Tea and take good rest!
