Monday, June 1, 2009

An opportunity missed!

A random thought occurred to me today. One of the older Harry Potter movies was on TV and a scene of that ridiculous sport "Quidditch" came up.

(For anyone familiar, you know what I'm talking about. For those who aren't, go here).

Now, if JK Rowling (a Brit) had used a form of Cricket instead of Quidditch, I think that would have been a really awesome opportunity to increase cricket awareness. The setup is perfect - British boarding school, green fields, lots of potential for creativity, etc.

Given the massive success of Harry Potter (books, movies, amusement parks), there is no doubt that there would have been an increased interest in cricket among people of all ages all across the world.

And with Daniel Radcliffe (the guy who plays Harry Potter) being a massive cricket fan himself (even having nightmares of Andrew Strauss - yes, this is true), it would have been a free marketing medium.

But, it was not to be. The silly sport of Quidditch will live on as one of the weaker parts of the Harry Potter franchise. And cricket was deprived of a golden opportunity.

So that's my random rant to end the weekend. Time to start getting into Monday mode. Ugh!

Make your pitch on this post...



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11 Pitched:

  1. Ankit Poddar said...
     

    Q,

    one of the major thoughts I had about Quidditch, was even if JKR had to come up with a sport for the wizards and the witches, why did she have to come up with something influenced from football, or hockey!

    why not have cricket in air?

  2. raj said...
     

    What shocks me though, Q, is that you read the mountroad mahavishnu a.k.a THE HINDU a.k.a, the national newspaper of Chin..er..India.

  3. a fan said...
     

    i think thanks to google search, he has stumbled on chindu article:)

    Quidditch has both the teams fully present on field which is not possible in cricket form.It would've been boring for non-cricket fans unless there was an out of the world rapid snitch snatch chase sequences in cricket form....

  4. Q said...
     

    Ankit: That was Sledge, not me :-)

    I don't know much abt Harry Potter or Quidditch, so am going to go educate myself now..

  5. Q said...
     

    Raj: It was Sledge who gave u guys the link.. but I do read the Hindu :-)

  6. Q said...
     

    a fan: welcome to the blog.

  7. Gaurav Sethi said...
     

    like the tangent Sledge.

    But the author gave us all a flying fck instead.

  8. SledgeHammer said...
     

    @raj: I actually heard about the story a few years back.

    So, as "a fan" correctly implied, I quickly googled "daniel radcliffe andrew strauss" to find a link, and it came up with the Wikipedia page for Daniel Radcliffe which happened to mention the story. And I just grabbed the source that Wikipedia linked to.

    This is what's called "research" these days! ;)

  9. SledgeHammer said...
     

    @a fan: Good point about both teams being fully on the field at the same time.

    But it didn't have to be exactly cricket as we know it, but some form of cricket. Maybe Quicket?

    There's enough creative ways to fit brooms, flying, and more players onto the field.

    And had she even used cricket in the pretty traditional form, it would have been even better, IMO (run chases, last ball finishes, etc). No reason to have everyone on the field - wouldn't have made a difference to the reader.

  10. SledgeHammer said...
     

    @Naked Cricket: Thanks. And agreed. If I was more Harry Potter literate, I would name a curse that she put on us cricket fans! ;)

  11. Ankit Poddar said...
     

    ouch, sorry sledge! i didn't read the name at the top!

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