Somebody Stop Him
By Gulu Ezekiel
The Indian Premier League has become the latest chest-thumping vehicle for Indian Netizens both at home and abroad. Any non-Indian critic of the annual jamboree now into its third year is immediately dubbed a racist. Any Indian critic is dubbed a traitor. This is new-age jingoism at its worst.
How a domestic cricket league with a smattering of international players came to this pass is entirely due to the massive PR machine cranked out by Lalit Kumar Modi and his merry band of Bollywood stars, fat-cat businessmen, ex-players and journalists, all with a vested financial interest in singing from the sang hymn sheet.
The clamour for the ICC to create a ‘window’ free of international cricket for the six weeks of the IPL in summer and the two weeks of the Champions League in winter is growing ever louder. But assuming the ICC succumbs to such pressure and gives Modi what he wants, will he settle for that?
Make no mistake—Modi and the IPL’s ultimate target is not six or eight weeks in the calendar. World cricket domination is in his sights and it is the Indian cricket public who will decide whether he gets what he desires or has his ambitious plans thwarted.
But there are bumps on the superhighway and the biggest was revealed in Mumbai where the auction for two new franchises for IPL IV collapsed on Modi like a warm soufflé more due to his greed than anything else.
The Ravindra Jadeja scandal also proves that the players are helpless–albeit richly paid–pawns. For the owners, these players, many of them national icons, are the ultimate status symbols. They are flaunted much like the latest Gucci handbag or Manolo Blahnik shoes. In other words, they are trophy players for the owners.
While 60 matches will be played this year, next year the number jumps to 94. Will the Indian cricket-mad public continue to lap up this TV reality show or will they suffer from indigestion?
For senior cricketers the IPL is like a gilt-edged Voluntary Retirement Scheme. Why spend the year traveling the cricket world playing for your country when you can take home 10 times the money playing hit-and-giggle cricket for a few weeks?
For the new generation of cricketers, the temptations are irresistible. Why slog and sweat it out for the handful of places in the national or even state side when you can make a tidy packet bowling four overs or batting for a few more? The route to riches has never been easier.
But one can hardly blame them. It is the authorities who have created this money-fuelled machine that has upturned a value system going back over a century in a matter of three years.
So what if the IPL is creating a generation of half-baked cricketers who fail at the international level? If Modi has his way, such cricket will anyway be defunct.
South Africa in 2008 was just the first step. Canada and the United States beckon. In five years time will international cricket be replaced by IPL-backed franchises traveling round the world with Modi the ringmaster cracking the whip?
It is the Indian fan alone who will ultimately decide cricket’s fate. Hang on for the ride.
It seems as though you have two primary concerns: that Modi-ball will drive international cricket to extinction, and that future cricketers’ skill sets will atrophy as they focus on the more lucrative, shorter game. On the first point, you may be right; on the second, I can assure you that you fears are unfounded.
If international cricket is to die at the hands of IPL-style cricket, it will be because cricket’s fan base has voted it out of existence; at the end of the day, “the customer is always right,” because the customer pays the bills. Many tests & ODIs are now played in half-empty stadia, while IPL matches are almost always played before near capacity crowds. Clearly, fans enjoy the T20 format, which is why corporate dollars are easy to find for Modi. If international cricket cannot compete economically, should it be subsidized just to maintain its dominance, or even its viability? Is cricket played for the benefit of the fans, or merely to perpetuate the “traditions of the game?” Whose game is it anyway?
If, as you say, an IPL contract is ten times as valuable as an international contract, it would seem to me that the cricketing public has made its choice and found T20 preferable. People vote with their wallets, and while governments can keep international cricket afloat artificially through funding and prohibitions on players’ participation in outside events, if there has been a significant shift in fans’ loyalties, these are only temporary measures to forestall the inevitable. I personally enjoy the diversity in modern cricket, and don’t expect that test & ODI cricket will die off completely, I just expect that they’ll find themselves sharing equal time with the T20 game.
And if, as you say, the T20, IPL-style game is a bonanza for all involved, then this is good for the game, too. I say this because wherever there are riches to be made, individuals and organizations will make investments in hopes of cashing in. This will mean more money for infrastructure, national organizations, teams and players. And as the potential for personal wealth grows among the players, more young people (and their families) will be willing to work hard and sacrifice for a chance at the big prize. While few will ever actually achieve the great payday, the talent pool will rise with the increased level of competition, which should provide for better international teams, even if they are comprised of those who were found wanting at the shorter game. (This phenomena can be witnessed in the US, where parents spend small fortunes on just the slightest hope that their child might one day be a good enough athlete to receive a college scholarship, or perhaps, if they are very talented, a chance to turn pro. The result is a plethora of athletic training facilities, people and products designed to make the child better at whatever it is he or she does.)
So what do I think the future holds for cricket? Only good things. I see a future with more markets, more funding and bigger, stronger, better trained players. The fixtures may look slightly different, but this will just be cricket responding naturally to the desires of its fans, reflecting its health and flexibility. I also don’t expect Modi to be the “only game in town” forever. It’s a big world out there, and as I pointed out earlier, money sparks competition. I’m sure there are dozens of Modi imitators waiting in the wings for their chance to invest in cricket, which again, will not be a bad thing. I say, bring it on.
Well, for one, I don’t know on what basis you have reached the conclusion that “cricketers’ skill sets will not atrophy if they focus on the shorter game”.
Your conclusion surely defies all logic. One normally becomes better at things s/he focuses on, and the vice-versa holds true as well. If the primary focus of a bowler becomes restriction of runs, he is unlikely to deliver results in a Test match situation where one needs wickets. Similarly a batsman may end up scoring a quick fire fifty at times in a Test, but on not-so-flat wickets, he is likely to struggle if he keeps practising on flat wickets all the time.
Secondly, for all my love for democracy and people’s rights, I don’t believe the average folk is the best judge of all things. Sometimes you need one or a few people with a longer vision to take control of things.
Thirdly and probably most importantly, I don’t think the IPL is as popular as it is being made out to be. I have a very honest and neutral indicator – the traffic on my cricket blogs. During the last World Cup (both T20 and 50 overs) traffic on a single day used to surge well over 20,000 visitors a day, whereas even on the opening day of IPL it touched only 10,000. Since then it has come down considerably.
An official at the Barabati Stadium which is one of the IPL venues commented a couple of days back that they were struggling to sell the tickets even though the price was half that of a ODI.
What that comment probably indicates is that in India, the IPL is by and large a big city phenomena. That does not mean it will not grow, but the current hype and figures being bandied out by Mr Modi and his merrymen are not the most authentic.