At last check cricket was a sport. Now, the dictionary defines sport as a type of physical activity people indulge in for enjoyment. Something about sport being derived from the Old French desport, meaning leisure — no word in there about it not being an enjoyment for any party or a proxy war. Cricket is a sport and yet one cannot be blamed for wondering who derived unadulterated enjoyment from the game played recently in Dubai between India and Pakistan. Not Virat Kohli going by the post-match presser — he seemed to be having a far better time when he was making witty posts about brand Wrogn in pre-match social media posts. Not the Twitterati, here or there, fixated as they were on settling scores instead of game and play and stroke. Not the Kashmiri students in Sangrur and Agra, Samba and Srinagar.

Queering the pitch

Not Nasir Khuehami, national spokesperson of the Jammu and Kashmir Students’ Association — he reportedly spent long hours fielding calls. Nor the unsuspecting India cricketer Mohammed Shami. Certainly not the cheery schoolteacher in Udaipur who found herself suspended. And perhaps not all those cops on their toes. Though BCCI’s Maharaja had generously commented ahead of the match, “Pakistan is also a good team. If one or two players click, then anything can happen… It will be a great match,” there is no guaranteeing that it was unadulterated enjoyment that he experienced when the match got underway. Cricket qualifies as a sport, and enjoyment ought to be in the flick of a wrist, a lighting run, a smooth catch, and yet here was a match that was all about moves and counter moves, offenders and defenders off-field.

In pursuit of…

Since we are talking about literal word meanings and etymology, let's look up the English word hate. The word sport may exist in every language of the world, dead and living, but chances are it would not be as nuanced as hate. Hate is derived from the Old English hatian. Linguist and etymologist Anatoly Liberman writes, “In Old English, only hatian has been recorded, and it meant 'to pursue'."

Pursue as in chase, chase like chasing a score or runs or, to put it in the Old English way, hating for leisure.