There is nothing quite like sports to unite — or divide — us. The cricket season, Fifa World Cup, Wimbledon, Olympics: All make experts out of everyone and predictions are spouted fearlessly and sometimes as accurately as Paul the octopus or Nelly the elephant. And, whether or not we can back our statements with knowledge and statistics, we are always ready for discussion and debate as we allow personal preferences to surface.

Any sports lover will tell you that we often find allies in unlikely places. We suddenly discover that someone we never saw eye-to-eye shares our likes and dislikes and we take a second look at them and ourselves as we tread common ground. And it is just as likely that someone dear within our close family circle holds diametrically opposite views to ours and is backing the ‘wrong’ team, leading to any number of sometimes unreasonable but always heartfelt debates! In our home, the Indian Premier League (IPL) season has us glued to our television sets, as we rattle off team compositions, players’ histories and all kinds of statistics. As students and working professionals, numbers and percentages were a constant bogey and as semi-retirees we cannot recall where our last hundred bucks went ... but this is easy to remember. This is cricket and we know what is happening with every ball. Besides, it is oppressively hot outdoors — even late in the evening. So we remain in front of that flat screen to see what those mix-and-match players from various countries do.

Even if we start off with personal favourites, we learn to be circumspect about airing our preferences in the first fortnight. Early choices could well leave us red-faced at the end of the championship. What if ‘our’ team starts out badly? We could be the butt of all jokes and worse, we could be left rudderless, with nothing to pique our interest and keep us going. If the team of our choice remains at the bottom of the performance charts, heavily into minus figures, with little hope of reaching the knockout stage, whom will we cheer for? How will we keep the interest level from flagging?

So, unlike what we usually do with international matches, we wait and watch. We have a string of either/or choices that we air tentatively each day as two teams face each other (surely we prefer one side over the other for some reason?) and once the teams play themselves into the top four, we allow our preferences to be known.

For one of us in our little home, it is easy to do this: Watch clinically, impartially, almost Sphinx-like. The performance is assessed without emotion and when the last ball of the match has been bowled and the result (nail-biting or otherwise) is known, there is just a ‘Goodnight’ and off to sleep, undisturbed by the could-have-beens or should-have-beens or the many “wow” moments of the match.

Right through the same match, the other member of the watching duo, however, gets thoroughly involved in the drama that unfolds on the pitch and rails, rants and allows all manner of furious or encouraging remarks to fly forth — and generally creates as much noise as would a decently packed stadium of spectators.

How her partner can remain blandly emotionless through all the tense moments of the matches is unfathomable to her and provokes a string of animated comments. But those too remain one-sided — unless she can consider those snores beside her as some form of argument or agreement ...

What a relief that it is now time to return to the ‘whodunits’, rom-coms and family sagas that play themselves out on television year-round. There, at least, predictions often come true — and emotions are not so deeply involved!

Cheryl Rao is a freelance journalist based in India.