Those moments of motion frozen in time...

....are what sports photography is all about.

You look at the celebrities and their supporters here.....

....A few young men enfolded by a mystic haze in their own divine world here ....

......Or at this delightful, wonderful collection of magic moments from a cross section of over 100 crore people by Will Luke.....

Each of those gems is a small yet fathomless chapter in the game of cricket told thru a single moment of visual inspiration that was also a magnificent feat of hand-eye (or should it be finger-eye) coordination, a chapter that could not be described quite as well by all the words coined in history.

Seeing is believing, and there hardly was ever a point of time in my existence when I believed in that more than I do now after coming across those pictures. I am glad that I blog about cricket - as that alone allowed me the fortune of getting to them.

Many of those pics transend the sport they depict. It could have been any sport in those pics and I would be as blessed to get a share of them as I am now. But I am just glad that it is cricket in its resplendent 24 carat glow that those snaps reflect rather than another game.

About his passion for cricket pics from the sub continent Will has this to say in one of his posts:

"I still haven't discovered what it is that appeals to me about cricket photos from the subcontinent. I love all cricket photography, partly because I'm an amateur snapper myself but mainly because there's something mystical about "freezing" action into one moment. Perhaps it's that cricket is to India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh what football is to Britain. But moreover cricket on the subcontinent appears born from the dust and soil. With the exception of the privileged, children aren't given shiny white pads and a slazenger bat for their 7th birthday; they play with sticks, on dusty tracks, on railways, platforms, mountains and> wherever they choose. It's much more a way of living, of passing time, than it is of playing the game.

That's my blinkered view of it anyway....."

Meanwhile I am still searching for Sunil Gavaskar's email ID. Do Send him these links if you have his contact, as he badly needs this medicine. Things can get from bad to worse if he manages to expose himself to some of the footage from his own playing days while in this frame of mind.