ESPN Cricinfo. WC 2015, WC 2015, WC 2015, ICC Cricket World Cup 2015,)

ESPN Cricinfo, WC 2015, WC 2015, WC 2015, ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 · Mohit Sharma walked into the press tent in Hamilton, New Zealand, sat down looked around and said, "Hindi main theek hai, na?" (It's fine in Hindi, no?) The press gathered were largely Indian and agreed instantly. Mohit, fresh-faced, personable, looked across at the team's media manager, Dr RN Baba, and with a wicked smile on his face said, "Sir, Hindi main." (Sir, it's in Hindi.) Dr Baba's total lack of Hindi, the link language in the Indian dressing room, is a well-known fact. But it didn't matter, Dr Baba was not there to offer interpretation services, merely to direct proceedings in his unique sign-language-countdown sequence. To hear both Mohit and, days later, Mohammed Shami reply to questions in their native language was to hear their personalities speak with openness and humour. About how the wicket-taking balls on highlights could, on other days, have been hit for six; the banding together of bowlers; the narrow percentages within the game; and the pressure from home expectation. Mohit and Shami's native language had freed them from the straitjacket of clichés about "good areas" the importance of "process" and "expressing" oneself. Having a cricketer speak in his own language allows him to share the game as he sees it with a wider audience. At a fund-raising dinner for the LBW Trust in Sydney on Saturday night, writer and historian Mike Coward, speaking as master of ceremonies, made an observation that could only come from a global citizen of Planet Cricket. He said, "We tend to forget that cricket is a sport of the developing world." The "we" Coward was referring to was the first world, where cricket - and the English language - has deep roots. For over a century, English carried the game's history, folklore and myths. Conversations around cricket's stories and mythology were, until a time, mostly conducted in English. Now, however, in parts of the world where the game is a surging life force, players come to cricket before they come to English. These are the places where cricket has its biggest numbers and most fervent fan following. It happens to be a non-Anglophone world and it is growing. Think of Afghanistan, whom we have seen at the World Cup. Or Nepal, who turned up at the ICC World T20 last year. Or Papua New Guinea, the East Asia Pacific region's strongest team, who have received ODI status, finishing fourth in a World Cup qualifier tournament last year. Each country's cricket brings with it languages that cricket had never inhabited before - Pashto/Dari, Nepali, and a creole called Tok Pisin. My colleague Jarrod Kimber helpfully passed on his notes from a Shapoor Zadran press conference at this World Cup: "Too much swing. Bouncer is good. Good for cuts and hooks. Dennis Lillee, Brett Lee, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Shoaib Akhtar. Waqar, Shoaib, Wasim, too much bounce, too much speed. I copied Shoaib Akhtar, even when I was a small boy I was running 38 steps. Too much hair. Height. Hair. Style. Speed, run-up, too much six." John Wright spent five years as India coach, during which he picked up only three words of Hindi © AFP Marvellous itself in its eccentricity, but so much more could have emerged if there was some