It was in the mid eighties, when I was still a very young child, that I got introduced to the game of cricket and it was primarily because of two gentlemen cricketers whom I have always adored and admired - Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar. Yes, much before Sachin Tendulkar arrived on the Indian cricketing arena, these were the two cricketers whom I had started idolizing, especially Kapil Dev for his dare-devilry and self-belief. I remember watching a few matches on TV along with my father and he used to tell me stories about how a very young, 20-something Kapil Dev was made the captain of the Indian team just before the 1983 cricket world cup began and how he had single-handedly turned around an almost-lost match against Zimbabwe in that world cup. Had India lost that particular match, the team would have been knocked out of the tournament. Even in the final match against the West Indies, my father used to recount, how Kapil as the captain galvanished his young team to be confident and to believe that they could still defend even that paltry score of 183! And they did exactly that. The more I heard about him, the more I started to respect him. But it was in the early 90s when I once got to watch the highlights of the the finals of Benson and Hedges World Championship played in Australia in 1985, that I saw Kapil's magic with the ball on TV for the first time. In no time, he plucked out three wickets from the Pakistani batting line-up and India eventually went on to win the match (though Srikanth and Ravi Shashtri also contributed with the bat). That magical bowling spell of Kapil Dev (especially his unplayable outswingers, the way he swung the ball around almost at will) remains etched on my mind ever since. That was probably my first brush with real cricket. I was lucky to see some other cricketing exploits of Kapil Dev too in the later years. As I started growing up, I got fascinated by other cricket talents too but Kapil Dev was my first cricket Hero, he always played his game with passion, with all of his heart and he rarely gave up even when his team had its back to the wall. His fighting attitude is what made him one of my all time favourite cricketers. So I get enthusiastic about whatever Kapil Dev is associated with.
But ever since he retired from international cricket, he has largely remained away from the game and the public eye, though he is now sometimes seen as a Hindi commentator on TV. So yesterday when I came across the youtube videos of the new League, it got me interested at once.
In the videos, Kapil Dev is seen speaking to celebrities and telling how they would fail miserably if they played it with their heart. Well, coming from someone who himself played the game with all of his heart, this new league definitely seems exciting especially when a legend like Kapil Dev is involved in it.
Though it hasn't been disclosed as yet what this "New League" is all about but from what I can guess from the promotional video, it is probably going to be a quiz-based programme on the television in which the participants would be some eminent sportspersons and Kapil Dev would be hosting the show. Or may be the show would have about 3 or 4 teams comprising of men or women from the general public, pitted against each other, like a league tournament and those teams would be captained by an eminent sportsperson. And the format of the game would be such that it would test their knowledge of sports trivia.
Well, there haven't been many sports-based quiz programmes on the television of late and so if my guess comes out to be correct, this nayi league will surely be a welcome addition to my TV viewing list. I am looking forward to it with all enthusiasm.