The sociologist Ashis Nandy once memorably wrote that cricket is an Indian game accidentally discovered by the British. Anyone watching the IPL, however, might be tempted to conclude that Twenty20 cricket, the instant form of the game, is actually an American game deliberately rediscovered by the Indians.

The United States led the world into the television age, and the implications can be seen most directly in America s long love affair with what Harlan Ellison memorably called the glass teat. In 1950, fewer than 8 of American households owned a TV by 1960, 90 had one.

What was remarkable about this framework was that its principal author, the major superpower of the day, accepted its authority. As US President Harry Truman memorably put it, We all have to recognize no matter how great our strength that we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please.

After telling ourselves for so long that our tools and technology can control nature, suddenly we were face to face with our weakness, with our lack of control, as the oil burst out of every attempt to contain it top hats, top kills and, most memorably, the junk shot the bright idea of firing old tires and golf balls down that hole in the world.