Cricket: not a critter but a religion in India :-)

This poster says it all!

If only this were a simple little one nutty poster .... a year ago, the following was in the news:

"Cricket is religion in our country and Dhoni is god of cricket," his fan club president Jitendra Singh said.
"We'll construct a huge temple of Dhoni in Ranchi and have a priest who will pray to him every day."

But, the good thing is that as much as real religions are losing their base, and the number of irreligious or casual believers is on the rise, even the religion of cricket (!) is losing its audience--even in India!  Why?  well, as all religions tend to do, well, the cricket priests also decided to extract way too much from the gods and the believers now can't afford to tithe like they used to, I guess.   Here is from one report titled "How cricket became boring" (ht):

It was unthinkable. That a day would come when the urban Indian male would admit he is bored of cricket. But the truth is that the sport is fast losing its charm among its most commercially influential devouts

 Notice here the usage of "devouts."  The author writes:

The board knows that the wealth of Indian cricket is a consequence of this nation’s complex love for the sport and that anything which affects this love would have financial repercussions.

So, yes, the high priests are concerned.  Now, if it is a religious crowd, then what happens?  Well, a new religion creeps in and tries to sweep up a few dejected believers.  That is what is happening in India, where football (ahem, soccer here in the US) is gaining a fan base so much so that the son of one of India's older and living cricket gods, Sunil Gavaskar, himself is attending services at the other religious sport:

From the equally pow­erful world of cricket, Rohan Gavaskar has en­tered the fray. He has bought a stake in the Pune FC football club.

Hmmm ..... the gods must be crazy :-)