Cricket- My Teacher

Cricket is a sport that portrays life on certain forefronts purely because of the nature of the game.  Teams battle against each other and showcase the quality 'survival of the fittest''. Cricket in a sense is played with a lot of pride as players represent their country at the highest level and represent their states or region at domestic and first class set ups. The crucial aspects or the requirements per se have massively changed and become dynamic in nature. Physical training and fitness have taken the lead as opposed to just purely skill enhancement. From playing for days to draw a result to fighting for couple of hours to win by margins, the game has come a long way.  Different formats are evolving from test cricket to limited overs cricket starting from  60-over one day internationals (ODIs) to 50-overs ODIs  to Twenty-20 and now to T10 cricket, the language of the game and the skills required to master each format have changed. Also it is not necessary that one format is considerably superior to the other, the nature of these formats and the incentives at play is simply just different. For example, it takes a great deal of resilience, incredible amount of patience and concentration to eke out a draw in Test cricket whereas in order to score 12 off 3 balls in T20 Cricket, it takes considerable  amount of  calmness, self-belief and match awareness considering one mistake would cost the match. 

Cricket for me is a manifestation of human life on a cricket field. It tests you to bring the best in you, cultivates in you a sense of team spirit by not performing for your own self but for the team, teaches you to pick your peers up when they are down, it gives you a second chance, allows you to give your everything to win and most importantly teaches you that you either win or you learn. The learning of you either win passionately or accept defeat elegantly with pride. The bowler is the hustler who just keeps on going until he gets what he wants and won't stop whereas the batsman is the opportunist for whom every ball is an opportunity to either score and make life easier or defend when required considering the fact that not every opportunity is worth exploring. The difficult phase of play is the dark phase of your life in which you just hang in there and play every ball (every opportunity) on its merit and wait for the situation to ease out and score again. Because what essentially happens in cricket and largely in life is you don't play the situation, you play time.