Cricket has emerged into one of the most-watched sports in India. The fans of this sport are crazy and Cricket is now what we preach!
A few days ago, I spoke to Mr. Ramakrishnan, who has made marvellous idols of Lord Ganesha playing cricket, which is currently situated at the Palayathamman temple in Anna Nagar. The temple was introduced with these idols only a few months ago, just ahead of the World Cup matches. The statues represent a sign of lucky charm to all the Indian cricketers. The temple even has coconuts with names of each player written on each of them! This, they say, is for wishing the team good luck for their forthcoming matches.
What inspired Ramakrishnan to come up with this idea? He replies,”Well, on March 11th 2001, we all know how India attained a miracle victory against the Aussies at Calcutta. During the match, I prayed to Lord Ganesha, promising that I would construct a temple for him if India won. Fortunately, Harbhajan Singh and VVS Laxman rocked the country with their marvellous performances, and Sachin Tendulkar crossed his overall total of 10,000 runs. This inspired me to construct models of Lord Ganesha playing cricket.”
He then went on to make seven statues out of rock at Mahabalipuram. When he felt that this has be publicised to get more fans to pray for Team India, he thought of placing these idols in a temple. “Last Ganesh Chathurthi, I placed them in this temple,” he says happily.
On the significance of the statues, Ramakrishnan explains,”If you observe, the statue on the top right has a centre head, 5 heads on the left, and 5 heads on the right, depicting that the team has 11 players. Also, the Ganesha holding the bat has it in his right hand, and the Ganesha holding the ball has it in his left hand, trying to show that the team consists of left-handies and right-handies. This particular statue has the number ‘100’ written on it, so that the team will be 100% efficient during their matches.”
Also, there is a set of coconuts, with each player getting his name written on individual coconuts. During the time of the matches, the coconuts are broken, wishing all the players good luck.
In all, there are 6 statues, with 2 of batsmen, 2 of bowlers, 1 of a fielder, 1 of a wicket keeper, and 1 statue with all types of positions.
Special prayers and a ceremony were conducted a week before India’s first World Cup match. A lot of rituals were performed in front of the idols for our Indian players to succeed in the world cup 2015.
The fans hope ‘Cricket’ Ganesha would certainly bless Team India with the World Cup this season!
Cricket Ganesha is really blessing our Indian Team which we can agree from the way our team has won both the matches that they have played so far. Pray Him to continue his blessings throughout the world cup.
Kris.adi.abi