thatsme

Lets get to know them..

1) The Busy Bees..

These are not exactly a part of the classification, but included them, as we tend to bump into one, very frequently. These people have plenty of everything, but time is not one of them. They consider it a awful waste of time to watch cricket and feel its better to watch a game of "Football" or "Baseball" instead. I wonder what they do with all that time on hand..

2) The Devotional.

No, I'm not talking about their devotion to the game of cricket. But their devotion to the God they believe. You might tend to think that these are a subset of theists , but you are wrong. Even the staunchest of atheists will be found engaged in archaic rituals. These people transcend all the religions and beliefs that the world has seen and the devotion just increases manifold during the times of crisis for the team they root for.

3) The Superstitious.

This group of people might be scientists in the rocketing launching division of I.S.R.O, but it doesn't stop them from wearing their unwashed blue T-shirt, when your favorite team takes on their arch rivals, just to increase the chances of winning. Logic takes a back seat, with seemingly inexplicable actions of theirs, ranging from sitting of a particular pose, to hold on to a particular spot in the room or clutching to the remote etc, is as much important as anything else.

4) The Experts.

This breed is is a class apart. They provide incisive insights into the dynamics of the match, with every bowl being bowled and every run scored. They can almost single-handedly explain the Duckworth-Lewis method, which is considered as complex as the Einstein's Theory of relativity and second only to the tax laws of any country. They are the first to decide the match result, although the last to leave the room, just to make sure their prediction is correct or wrong. In spite of their extraordinary talents, we cannot really explain why they continue watching a match that they predict that their favorite team would lose. Blame it on the "fan" inside them.

5) The Statisticians.

On surface they are almost like "The Experts". But they tend to live in the past. From time to time, during the course of the match, they present to you nice anecdotes of the past, with accurate (sometime exaggerated) accounts of what happened in a similar situation. They are moving encyclopedias of cricketing statistics, with just about anything cricket related.

6) The optimists.

They just don't give up on their favorite team. Not even when Venkatapathi Raju is playing against Curtly Ambrose, on a Perth pitch, with 7 runs needed off the last ball.

7) The pessimists.

These, as you can figure out, these are the worst kind. They just don't believe that their team is going to win. They have a gift of pissing off even the coolest of guys, when watching a match. Their constant nagging , that their team is bound to lose, gets onto your nerves like the scratching sound of chalk on a black board.

8) The  hybrids.

These people cannot be classified as either pessimists or optimists. There are as optimistically pessimistic as they are pessimistically optimistic. They can never watch a match completely. Nor they can keep themselves away from watching it. Every now and then they resign to the fate of their team , but still keep asking about the score for every 5 mins.

9) The online fan.

This category of fans live in a virtual world. They prefer "following" cricbuzz and cricinfo than watching it live on regular TV. While some do it with no possible explanations, there are others who do not have an option, but to follow it online, like the IT/BPO folks. And there is no surprise that these would be the first to update the scores on social media.

13) The Party Animal:-

This set of people are there in almost every group that watches the game of cricket. Although they do not understand the nuances of the game, they are almost an indispensable part of the group and more often than not, also the life of the gathering. They will be there throughout the game, munching on the potato chips, gulping the soda and/or beer. Basically these people are there just for the atmosphere, more than the game.

14) The superficial:

These people masquerade as hard core fans, until you pit them alongside an expert or a statistician. They only know a few keywords and using this vocabulary, they try to show off as an expert fan.
The reasons for this behavior is hard to fathom and is irksome for a real fan.