Vuvuzelas in Cricket !

Trumpets are all set, or are they?

One of the redefining moments of the 2010 Foot Ball World Cup was the sound of the Vuvuzela playing all throughout the entire tournament especially the Opening Ceremony being Vuvuzela mad! Some hated it and some just embraced it but no one can deny the fact that the Vuvuzela had become synonymous with had the 2010 Football World Cup. It was the most wanted FIFA memorabilia and even the fake cheaper ones were selling like hot cake! Who would have imagined that this 2 feet long plastic trumpet would go on to symbolize the sport of Football in South Africa? Even its manufacturers would not have even thought they would be up against such a great surge! To give you an idea how big the surge was let me quote one statistic from HT “During the World Cup, one Vuvuzela was sold in Britain for every two seconds at 2 Euros each (Rs 115).”

Indian Retailers on the other hand were not anticipating this and initially only a few hundreds were doing the rounds in Delhi with the FIFA Hats and Caps being in large numbers. Come 2011 is that all set to change? One big question that arose towards the end of the FIFA World Cup was – will the Vuvuzela live after the hype of the Football World Cup? I guess we will come to know of the answer in the coming days.

The Indian Vuvuzela

I am not sure if Cricket and Vuvuzela could go hand in hand. If I could recall properly, once Brian Lara got furious over blowing trumpets during a match against India in the West Indies and resumed play only after the noise was done away with! Hence the margin of doubt exists but one should keep in mind the true essence of the vuvuzela and that it represents an entire culture and that it may only add more beauty to the beautiful game of Cricket. This does come with its own drawbacks with the most significant one being permanent hearing loss when played at close range as it can generate upto 120db of intensity. So there are two sides of looking at it.

The rise to fame of the vuvuzela saw many versions of who actually owns the copyright to manufacture it. Inspite of the doubt the sales just seemed to be catching up and at the same time the Vuvuzela was in the news all throughout for all the right as well the wrong reasons but according to Brandon Bernado, the man behind the South African branded, breaded and custom made Vuvuzela, the bad publicity that the instrument received actually did a lot of good to business!

The 2010 Champions League was played in South Africa with the vuvuzela being banned from being carried within the stadiums and one particular comment from a top South African Cricket Official was “There is no doubt that the vuvuzela added to the atmosphere during the recent FIFA World Cup, but it is certainly not the sound of cricket.” But frankly speaking who needs the Vuvuzela when you have cheer leaders dancing and DJ’s mixing the music? So that was about the Champion League and now the World Cup is a different phenomenon. Rather, it’s a huge phenomenon and it needs to be sensationally spread among the people and there has to be something that each and every one of us could associate ourselves with.

Even though the people supported different teams and idolized different players at the FIFA World Cup, they were all united by one means or the other and the Vuvuzela symbolized this unity. Every Football fan blew his trumpet to cherish and rejoice his team play and that itself was a symbol of joy and pride.

So, are the trumpets all set or are we going to blow our own trumpets?

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