#1 Bangladesh Cricket Fan or Tales of Woe

[Zunaid]

The article "Following the game" (By Mahmudul Huq Khan) got me thinking about all the stange lenghts we've gone to keep up with Bangladesh cricket - especially those of us who are in the Cricket wastelands of good 'ole USA. C'mon all, share your stories and in the end we might even have a vote to see wich pathetic person can win the title of "#1 Bangladesh Cricket Fan".

Here is one of my many stories:

This was during the Lanka tour of '02. The only coverage, of course, was the Cricinfo commentary. No, this account is not the usual pathetic story for so many of us who stay up late and watch 60 second refreshes of text commentary and stay glued to the monitor even when your team is getting its cr*p beaten out of it. My wife, bless her soul, gives me strange looks yet forgives my strangeness. She may have contemplated sending me to a shrink but after 10 years we are still happily married. Ok, back to the story.

My bedroom was upstairs and my desktop was in my office/den was downstairs. When my decrepit bones complained too much about the lateness of the hour, I would retire upstairs to bed, armed with my wireless enabled laptop. Of course, the WAP decides it has had enough and goes out on me one night.

What is a Bangladesh Cricket fan to do? Necessity is the mother of inventions. I took one of my X-10 cameras and placed it straegically on a pile of books in front of my desktop. Hid all unneccessary browser tabs. Turned off the screensaver and turned off monitor/hard-drive sleep settings. I had an X-10 receiever hooked to my TV in the bedroom. I then retired, pleased as punch, to bed and irritated my wife by switching between Leno and my riveting cricket game.

I was golden.

[Orpheus]

oh hell yeah.. I love leno! Zunaid bhai adapt me please! I will make both of you proud!

anyways, I loved khan's article and found it very touching.... I felt the writer..seroius.. it doesn't happen often! maybe cuz I can relate to it somehow..
jaihok .. peace!

[Edited on 21-5-2004 by Orpheus : bhai naki abbu?]

[Edited on 21-5-2004 by Orpheus]

[fwullah]

I believe some of you already know my story, but here goes.

1) I have never ever been to a cricket stadium, nor do I wish to go to any cricket stadium in the world unless given all the facilities that there is to provide, and yet I am the most regular writer around here, as well as arguing with all the cricket fans all over the world (male/female) who have both been to cricket stadiums and haven't been to any cricket stadium at all.

2) In addition, I have never hold a cricket bat or a cricket ball in my whole life until I won the 2nd prize of Bangladesh Cricinfo quiz competition after Bangladesh's maiden tour of Zimbabwe.

3) My brother used to watch all the world cup football matches staying up as late at night as they were, for as long as he stayed in Bangladesh, or as far as I can remember; I never used to join him because staying up until midnight or late until morning (1/2 AM) was forbidden for me, also did not feel the same way as Bhaia did. But now, after several years of watching Bangladesh cricket closely on TV, I just could not afford to miss Bangladesh's maiden tour of the West Indies and stayed up until 3 or 3:30 in the morning - alone - with just the computer to give me the comfort in the loneliness of watching cricket (alone).

Even if I don't get voted the #1 cricket fan, as I demand to be, still I have got the pleasure of watching one of the most close-faught ODI matches that Bangladesh have ever had played - in the very first ODI match of the caribbean ODI series.

[Rubu]

i'll vote the #1 cricket fan (cricket in gereral, not only bd) a friend of mine. at least he is the one i've ever seen (i'll not consider the fans in this site as i never SEEN any of them). anyway, this guy used to say up late and listened to fm radios news to know the result of cricket matches where two other country are playing (say aus and eng). and he used to do it during a time when very few people in bangladesh had interest in cricket (around '93).

[Orpheus]

I have never ever been to a cricket stadium, nor do I wish to go to any cricket stadium in the world unless given all the facilities that there is to provide

what the? what facilites do you want?? Please girl!! Life is really unfair... Ppl who would do anything just to get a glimpse of live action are sent to somewhere where cricket is a bug and those who have everything right in front of them don't wanna go cuz they don't like the bird crap on the seat.. please.. get a newspaper and cover it! what else do you want? - be glad if you get a seat.

what other facilites do you want??? are you heir to England's throne? Even she would sit on the bird crap...

Ppl in Bangladesh are all messed up. I think you need to get a McJob in BNS. Then your attitude might change....

[fwullah]

BNS won't be forever.

I was referring to the fact of the hospitality boxes. I was offered a couple of times to go to statdium (on only 2 rare occassions), but I had exams/classes on those times.

If I can get the hospitality boxes available, then I won't have to regret not watching the close-decisions on TV, because usually, hospitality boxes in Bangladesh have the live TV channels, not to mention they have AC.

[Orpheus]

oh so you don't wanna miss the tv analysis.... that's understandable... but do you know how it feels to be in presence of thousands of ppl all screaming their heart out at the same time? You don't cuz you never experienced such ambience! You should try it sometimes... You tihnk you will miss tv analysis? the sound around you is the best analysis

[Edited on 22-5-2004 by Orpheus : my post dont even make sense to me ]

[Edited on 22-5-2004 by Orpheus : editing edit reason lol]

[fwullah]

well, TV doesn't show any analysis (not for Bangladesh matches, anyway), only if a certain ball is a bad one or a good one, and if a decision by umpire is the correct one or not.

The number of times that I do not get to watch Bangladesh's matches because of my studies, I wanna grab the opportunity when I can get to watch everything possible.