The five types of cricket spectators

The Oblivious Spectator

The most sincere of all spectators, this person is a dying minority whose vision is NOT focused on the megatron, perhaps because they’re not in direct view of it, but nevertheless remaining entirely oblivious to the glare of the camera. The cameraman may be focusing on them for minutes, but they will never realise, unless some gleeful creature next to them bursts this Big Brother bubble. 75 percent of the time, she will be female, or an Indian mentally obsessing about how badly he’s going to lose the night’s betting pool.

Usually used by the camera crew to show how tense and nailbiting the match is.

The Soulless Starer

You don’t know what this person is thinking, but you sure wish you did. Their gaze into the camera lens is akin to them asking some omniscient entity what the meaning of life, the universe and Justin Bieber is.

As an image speaks a thousand words, I’m not even going to bother trying to describe this classic shot of one such Bengali Soulless Starer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZWZ0UwYs6uo

The Hipster Fan

Within a second of being projected onto the big screen, you see this breed of people change. They know they need to look cool and pretend like they come on TV all the time (yeah right), so they pull out their choice arsenal of weaponry to make themselves look like they’ve just walked off the red carpet and this is all old hat to them. The men usually choose to look ultra-involved in a phonecall that’s vaporized out of nowhere, while the women will look super sexy with this non-committal sexy pout, all the while involving some or the other interaction with their French manicured nails and/or bling sunglasses that just scream ‘LOOK AT ME I CAN AFFORD FENDI KNOCKOFFS’.

Guy or girl, they will always, always be gazing into the distance trying to look nonchalant, as if they’re deciphering the complicated logic that goes on behind the heavy roller that’s being wheeled onto the field during the drinks break.

The Hipster is usually deployed to make it seem like the match has attracted some pseudo D-grade celebrity we’re not aware of and/or attracted a crowd of seemingly classy people.

The Guy Who Loses. His. Shit.

Probably the cutest of the lot. Unless he’s from the subcontinent, in which case they go crazy. Kids, old people, people with ingenious signs, they love it when they’re on camera, gleefully waving back home and giving you the ubiquitous thumbs up/peace sign.

If they’re Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani or Sri Lankan, however, you’re probably going to be frightened for the safety of the little child the cameraman initially wanted to focus on. These people have a domino effect on those around them; everyone starts going nuts – they start pushing people out of the way, screaming at the camera, thrusting their arms in the air in some quasi-masculine way, compensating for God knows what, proving to the television audience that all the world’s crazies decided to have a convention in Bangalore.

The CameraWhore

Probably the most shrewd of all kinds, this spectator knows exactly what to do to get on TV. Be it signage needlessly exalting the broadcasting channel or some pseudo lie about how “I came all the way from Timbuktu to watch the match”, loosely translated into “relay me onto TV”, this person knows all the tricks of the trade to get maximum footage out.

May or may not be accompanied by some garish/senseless/bizarre costume/headgear/haircut.

Used to massage producers’ egos and to prove to non-believing spectators that cricket is not in fact a gentleman’s game.

On another note, anyone else notice how the cameramen covering sports events are so insatiably horny and tend to zoom in on women like 87% of the time?