It’s just no longer cricket. At least, not as we know it. Barring the bat, ball and stumps, not many of the essential symbols of the hoary game would survive the onslaught of the market forces. The ascendency of the fifty-over version of the game as a money-spinner had already relegated the all-white slow motion Test cricket to secondary status. Yet, the mental transit from one to the other was rather calibrated and in any case, they retained several commonalities and could exist side by side. But to the current 20-20 generation, all the earlier versions of the game would soon seem like nostalgic nonsense.
The nuanced game would now resemble a free-wrestling bout with frenzied batsmen strutting around menacingly like gladiators, mauling the bowlers mercilessley as if they were dead meat. In club cricket, the bats probably are meant to be used as clubs! The bowlers for their part would forfeit all their finesse with the bowling arm becoming some kind of a sling to fling the ball in the direction of the batsman and then be raised as if in prayer for a ‘maiden ball’. The fielder would rarely be on the field, air borne, instead, most of the time, trying to intercept in mid-air the flying missiles whizzing past. Yes, cricket would be hardly recognisable. Match fixing is passe. The entire game looks fixed. So what next? Choreographed cricket in theatres or virtual ones on the laptop? But whatever, you can bet on the 20-20 too joining its ancestors soon in the dustbins of the game’s history.
But irrespective of the fate of the latest version, the game’s course looks to have been altered for ever. Neither the Packer adventure of the 70’s nor the English county, both though essentially club cricket, can hold a candle to the current heady cocktail of fast-paced format and finance. In that respect the Indian Premier League is doubtless a watershed. It would certainly hasten the process of converting cricket from a passionate art that combined brain and brawn into a mad display of mere muscle and money. But promising as it does unlimited booty for the organisers and unprecedented bounty for the players, besides loads of exciting ‘entertainment’ to the ‘audience’, it would be wholly unrealistic to expect the various vested interests to resist the lures. In any case, commercialisation of cricket is not a new phenomenon, but what however raises our hackles this time is the mind-boggling monetary figures that are being bandied about. Circketers will no longer be remembered for their scores on field but their price off it. And yes, it does hurt … the uncouth manner in which our dream stars are ‘auctioned’ and declared sold. In this slave trade of sorts money is the master but should not those stars on sale have considered the sensitivities of their own fans, who had all along applauded and adored them for their cricket and not valuations?
The loss of the game’s core character, the overhaul of the rules that have so far governed it, the abject monetisation of its every aspect, the complete obliteration of individual players’ talent and self respect and the short-shrift given to cricket’s real connoisseurs can all thus be deemed the primary casualties of the new version. But there is something else I consider more precious, even sacrosanct, and which I fear would be lost forever: Geographical identities that are the charm of domestic and internationl cricket. Even a Ranji trophy match, say between Karnataka and TN, does get spice only because of that regional divide. But if the IPL’s club format were to eclipse all other shades as it threatens to, even international cricket risks getting diluted.
India Vs Australia with Sachin and Ponting on opposing sides is a battle royale. But Bombay club Vs Calcutta eleven with the very same Sachin and Ponting on either side does not look and sound the same. So what’s missing? The nation, the nation is gone and with it the associated fervour which makes a cricketing contest fascinating and fierce. When an S or P takes guard they are not seen as just two players. They represent a team, a national team and thus the nation itself. India winning the 1983 world cup and the 1985 Benson & Hedges trophy were not just cricketing events but deemed as the arrival of a resurgent nation. None can deny that cricket in a way fosters nationalism. And post World Wars, the World Cups and such other international events are the biggest arenas of global conflict, if you can call it that. If war is cricket without runs, cricket is war minus guns. Clubs cutting across frontiers would kill that ‘killer’ spirit.
Again, every cricketing nation plays its game in its own way. The ever so cool and breezy West Indians, the doughty South Afticans, the smug Englishmen, frenzied Pakis, arrogant Aussies and of course, the now-up, now-down Indians — all have a distinct culture that gives a uique character to their cricket. The very idea of ‘team spirit’ stems from this cohesiveness imparted by a common commitment of representing a nation or region. Besides, every cricketing nation has a history created by its cricketers which is about records against opponents from other nations. Such history should not be vitiated by cross-breeding.
At another level, I would any day have the Pakistani Imran bowling at Indian Gavaskar or the West Indian Richards hauling the very-English Botham over the fences. The charm would have been lost if such classsic adversaries had turned comrades-in-arms. What a travesty would it be if Harbhajan and Symonds, instead of rubbing each other on the wrong side as now, were to rub shoulders? Or when sometime in the future a Hayden walks up the ramp to collect the man of the match award for steering ‘India’ to victory against the Aussies? That would be sad for the people of both India and Australia. Men in blue or whatever, each should retain their hue!
Indeed one can seriously consider enlisting Raj Thackeray to restore the sons to their respective soils. It may seem parochial. But that’s cricket in its true flavour.
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