Articles on RK Laxman

In the 1990s, RK Laxman's Common Man grieved lost matches and not entirely metaphorically. Today, a world cup win produces a stage-managed celebration and a loss produces something closer to a shrug. What has happened to cricket is monetary debasement applied to an emotional currency. Cricket's administrators expanded the supply of fixtures, formats and world cups without a corresponding expansion of what made cricket valuable: the stakes, the scarcity, the sense that this particular moment matters. The feelings followed the arc of currency debasement.