Racism in cricket! Cricket was such a racist game

Subbu looked upset. 'What's the matter?' I asked.

'I never thought cricket was such a racist game,' he said.

'Those days are gone Subbu,' I assured him. 'Now it's all fair and square.'

'See,' he said. 'Fair and square. Why not dark and round?'

'Arre, I just used a common expression,' I protested. 'But why do you feel this way?'

'Balls,' he said.

'Excuse me' I asked.

''What's the colour of the balls they're using now?' asked Subbu.

'Oh, red for test matches, white for one days and pink for day and night games,' I said.

'Red, white, pink,' he repeated. 'Do I need to say more?'

'But a ball is a ball yaar,' I said. 'Why are you getting so upset about it?'

'Why not brown, yellow or blackballs?' countered Subbu. 'Why only white, red and pink? It's a white man's conspiracy.'

'Subbu, there's no conspiracy theory man,' I explained. 'It's just that the ball is not clearly visible in the background.'

'Change the background,' thundered Subbu. 'Everyone deserves a fair…umm, equal chance. It's already proven that some players are good for red-ball cricket, some for white-ball cricket and some for pink-ball cricket. We have specialists in three colours now. What about specialists in other colours?'

'What specialists? What colours?' I asked. 'This is cricket, not a painting competition.'

'Look, we all have our likes and dislikes,' said Subbu. 'I personally like yellow. My neighbour likes pink. If we play a pink-ball match my neighbour will be at an advantage, right? He loves pink so he will look at the ball lovingly and play it well. On the other hand, I'll get irritated because I don't have my yellow balls and am instead forced to play pink balls. I won't even look at the ball. My averages will dip. I demand to be bowled at with a ball colour of my choice. Equality and justice for all.'

'That may be difficult,' I said. 'The umpires will have to carry two balls with them all the time. One ball of your preferred colour and another for the other batsman. It will be a load on him. As it is, they are carrying too many things these days and forgetting to do their job.'

'They are carrying two balls anyway for the white ball matches,' said Subbu. 'You're saying they can carry white balls but not yellow balls huh?'

'Look you're opening a Pandora's box here,' I said.

'I am not opening any boxes. You started it with all this pink ball business. Just wait until the bowlers get involved. If bowlers start asking for their preferences of colours in balls, then you'll know.'

'How?' I asked.

'If a batsman likes yellow and the bowler likes brown then?' said Subbu. 'Will you come up with mixed coloured balls –half yellow and half brown?'

'With five bowlers and eleven batsmen, each wanting their own colour, how will that even work Subbu? All the umpire will be doing is picking balls for the bowlers and batsmen almost every ball.'

'Don't forget fielders and umpires,' reminded Subbu. 'They're people too. And I'm not even going near the fans because nobody cares about them anyway.'

'Maybe we should just get rainbow-coloured balls,' I suggested. 'That should sort out all your issues. Happy now?'

'I knew you'd say something racist like this,' said Subbu.

'What's racist about rainbows?' I asked.

'We all know what happens when we spin a rainbow coloured wheel fast enough,' said Subbu. 'It turns white.'

My face turned black as thunder.