Do any of these cricketers swing both ways?

Cricketers have never been among the world’s most exciting sex symbols. This may have to do with the fact that the game is not played across the world, or that fully if not overdressed players on a field do not allow imaginations to soar.

To be sure, there have been exceptions. Or at least one big exception in the form of Imran Khan (and latterly Wasim Akram, who modelled himself on the senior Khan and has admitted to tagging him at parties as a young man and raking in the leftovers).

Khan and Akram were a gay man’s delight as both are Pathans and as Pathans, they swung both ways (And I’m not talking about the balls they bowled).

There was Ian Botham who broke beds with alarmed prostitutes in Britain and said he wanted to take Zeenat Aman back home. There was Viv Richards who left the plucky (and lucky) Neena Gupta with a baby. My favourite photograph growing up was one of Richards and Botham on a Caribbean beach in just trunks, sitting back to back.

The permutations and combinations I imagined of myself sandwiched between them were seemingly endless. Both these were such gentlemen and such horny men that I am sure they would oblige. Of the younger studs known as sex symbols, the reasons have been their misdemeanours (read Brian Lara or Shoaib Akhtar) and they have not rendered them very exciting to fantasise about.

It became clear through these stories that cricketers have as colourful sex lives as any other sportsmen, though it is not clear if sportswomen have equally dramatic times. They certainly do not in cricket. The Indian or other women’s cricket teams simply do not have the same high profiles, the same high salaries and the same party circuits. Sexism rules as usual and the boys always have the better time.

As a young adult, I remember wondering why no cricketer ever came out as a gay man. Surely it was not possible for there to be no gay cricketer in the world? There was talk about Martin Crowe but he never confirmed any of the rumours. He was married too but so are half of the subcontinent’s gay men, so that’s no impediment. Where was the out and proud cricketer I was looking for?

As a young fogey now, I’m still looking but the game has definitely gotten gayer. The new homoerotic huddle of the Indian team is frisson-generating, the new fitness requirements means that no more pot-bellied, chubby Roger Binnys cloud the eye but there’s a lot more eye candy and the photo-ops of teams cavorting in the swimming pool or on the beach  offer ops of other kinds for the gay viewer.

While the white boys always did it, we have taken time to catch up. The South African team has always been a sight for sore eyes. Those solid beefy boys — Kallis, Gibbs, Boucher, Smith — are forever obliging by taking off their kit or practising with very little on or diving into water skimpily clad.

The Australians are a close second. The best part of paceman Brett Lee’s run up and delivery is the movement of his curvaceous basket. Symonds is a long, lazy eyeful and Watson a sprightly leprechaun and what is most endearing about these Aussie lads as well is their keenness to get their clothes off.

But now one can even get off on the local boys. It is always a pleasure to see Dhoni’s biceps and chest (though I confess to a need to see more of his thighs). Gautam, Yuvraj, Virat, Suresh are all bonafide members of my CUC (Chaddi Utaar Club). Yes, I know, but I do have a thing for dumb North Indian lads. I want to be marooned on an island with Irfan Pathan (and he’s not in the squad so maybe he’ll oblige) and I want Zaheer Khan’s babies.

He’s my hopeful for first out gay cricket player or my dream. It is the sheer sweetness and politeness, the unrehearsed tehzeeb of these boys that makes me weak in the knees. It is not put on like the Brahmin politesse of Dravid or Tendulkar. If he rejects me, there’s always Daniel Vettori, Abdul Razzaq, Ross Taylor, Mark Boucher and my all-time favourite, that kissable Northern lad Paul Collingwood. Collie makes my knees go wobbly.

There are the handsome boys who are also sweethearts like James Anderson who was sporty enough to appear naked in a gay magazine in Britain, big bad boys like Kevin Pietersen, just big boys like Chris Gayle or wily men with sexy smiles like the twinkling Muttiah Muralitharan. I always had the hots for Jayasuraiya but of late have made way for Sangakkara after mai dil hara to Fernando.

There’s lots of space in my polymorphously perverse and capacious boudoir, as you can see, and I’m hoping to be glued to the screen for some more of the side action with new teams, so many new players and so many shirts just waiting to come off.
There’s something for everyone in all these teams (my particular weakness for organically large oxen must be clear by now); there are all kinds, including slender stalks for every gay man of every inkling. Since cricket has been almost killed for me since the days of match-fixing and the corrupt sickness of national cricket organisation earlier and the newer vomit orgy of IPL and the overkill of advertising, I console myself that all that’s left of the game for me, apart from my love for it, are some of these sweet men who simply play for the love of the game.

Almost none of those men at the end of the day come from the subcontinent as almost all of them are victims to the lure of money and the lucre of fame but my heart will forever belong to Paul Collingwood.