The leap from the shorter version to the full-scale format is serious business. How serious it is can well be confirmed by every player who represented Ireland in its maiden Test. It is an altogether different mindset to plan session by session over five days. But, to be fair to the debutantes, even the mainstream sides are struggling on that count. It’s pretty wham-bam out there ... everywhere.
Regardless of what happened in Ireland and how, let us look at the larger picture; the state of the game of cricket on the global stage. The shorter versions — the ODIs, the T20s, the T10s and now the 100-ball variety — is taking its toll, and it is manifested in ways more than one.
In what was once a game that was the very epitome of fair play, there is now an inherent tilt towards foul play. The dice is clearly loaded against the bowlers compared to those who face them from 22 yards away. The bats are getting heavier and the grounds are getting smaller. This helps generate a kind of thrill among the spectators and television audiences alike and that means more eyeballs, which translates into more advertising revenue. Everyone is a winner in this game … except, perhaps, the game itself.
A fair chance for both the bowlers and the batsmen makes a contest even and intriguingly interesting. The modern game, however, is not about the intriguing, subtle interest. In an era of mass commercialisation of just about anything and everything, blatant, in-your-face, crass interest sells like little else. And so we have T20 leagues crowding out much else from the international calendar.
A fair chance for both the bat and the ball make a contest even and intriguingly interesting. The modern game, however, is not about the intriguing, subtle interest
Making conditions conducive to a fair contest between the bat and the ball works against its interest. There are just 20 wickets in a contest. Not all of them fall. And among those who do, many are not as spectacular as the organisers want them to be. So it is easy to bring the boundaries in so that even a wild swish taking the edge of the bat can go for a sixer. And then bring in the heavy bats and start measuring how far back the ball was dispatched by the batsman. And, as against 20 wickets, there can be any number of sixes — the more, the merrier. And, finally, the icing on the cake, the cherry on the top: put a bunch of cheerleaders around the boundary to create something that supposedly carries great entertainment value. Cricket, on its own, does not carry much entertainment value, it seems. And this is what commercialisation does.
This is not much different from what happened to, say, wrestling. There is still a professional value that most of us come across in a four-year Olympic cycle, and then there is the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) variety that hogs the limelight on television screens round the year. The only difference, is perhaps, in the role of the cheerleaders. In cricket, they are still on the boundary, while in WWE they are thrown right into the ring!
On another level, the International Cricket Council (ICC), the game’s governing body, struggles to chart out its Future Tours Plan (FTP) because there is, at best, a shrinking room for bilateral engagements. And even when there are tours, the visitors — whosoever they may be — struggle to come to terms with the playing conditions that are alien to them. They struggle so badly at times that the hosts stop hosting them anymore. Just recall what Bangladesh has said about Australia’s refusal to grant them a series on Australian soil.
The problem is not specific to any particular team or country or board. It is a problem that has arisen out of the manner in which the game is being run and managed at the global level where commercial sponsors get to call the shots … most, if not all the shots.
The problem with commercialism is simple; it never knows when to stop, where to stop. It keeps gaining and attaining momentum that converts it into a juggernaut. It becomes the proverbial bull that goes around bashing and smashing everything fine and refined in that equally proverbial china shop.
In the 1970s, the Kerry Packer phenomenon — which was purely a commercial affair, mind you —did bring in a few positive changes and added pace to the game. And things were settling down when the T20 version cropped up. And it cropped up only because there were folks who could not make the cut and decided to at least have some fun on their own.
Now T20 is a global act, and what is in the process of getting there is the T10 version. And, of course, the 100-ball contest which has 15 six-ball overs and a 10-baller at the end. Even a 50-over ODI is considered boring by many. Hopefully you are not one, but there are people around who feel that way. And they are considered the lifeblood of the game by those who are managing it.
Commercialism, remember, does not know where to stop, when to stop. The bull of commercialism is bound to destroy everything fine and refined in the cricketing china shop.
What a pity.
Published in Dawn, EOS, May 20th, 2018
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