The diet of prehistoric man mainly consisted of meat and fish. Poor fellow, he wasn’t proficient in agriculture yet. So he had to subsist on food which was achieved by killing other living beings, or rather other animals. In addition to this, they were also drinking the milk of different animals.

Then he progressed and developed agriculture. Now he had choice of a new food; previously this choice had been restricted.

As they progressed further they developed a conscience. This conscience started troubling a few humans. They were overcome by a feeling of guilt on killing animals for food. A few gave up eating animals, subsisting only on vegetables, fruit and milk. They started calling themselves vegetarian while those belonging to the opposite spectrum were non-vegetarian.

After the industrial revolution and especially in the late twentieth century, diary farms were run like an industry, with target oriented milk production. This involved cruel practices like calves being taken away from the cows as soon as they were born and the cows themselves being abandoned as soon as their milk production went down.

Various research and studies also showed that man is not very lactose friendly. Combined with the inhuman practices in milk production, these studies pushed some humans to give up on milk too. They started subsisting only on plant products for their nutrition. A new term had to be coined for this category of humans and the vegans were born.

So today’s topic is Veganism but in an entirely different field. Yes, it is the cricket field we are talking about.

Now you may wonder what is the connection of a game of cricket with Veganism. Well lots, if the English are to be believed.

As you know, the cricket ball is a covering of leather encasing a core of cork which is layered with tightly wound string. This leather is cow leather but let me assure you that there is nothing cruel about this industry.

However, since it is leather, an animal product, it had to come under the scanner.

It so happened that a new owner took over one of the many small cricket clubs in England. This person happened to be vegan. But he was disturbed that one of the key ingredients of the game involved animal hides which usually gets a good hiding with the bat. He decided to do something about it.

His idea and some entrepreneur’s enterprise has resulted in a ball which is covered by rubber instead of leather.

It’s another matter that this ball bounces till the first floor currently but they assure us that it will be brought down to earth soon.

I wonder whether world cups of the future will be divided into vegan non-vegan teams playing with extra long bats to negotiate the delinquent balls.

Yatindra Tawde