Long Live Cricket, The Cricket is terminally ill

Dynamic leadership, charisma and inspiration can collectively move mountains and push a band of people to bring the best out of them. In a Cricket team, a captain can bring a team back from the brink of oblivion to echelons of glory. Sobers, Kapil, Imran, Ranatunga are all fine examples of how one man made a team believe and succeed against odds. Their team mates can't stop talking about how they were moved by these gentlemen, and they all attribute World Cup victories to these leaders. But shouldn’t we also honor the commitment of all those team members who were inspired, who dreamed collectively and believed in a singular objective? Players who gave it their all, and lost their individual personas and came together as one unit to win it for their countries? There is something powerful in the moment when a Nation is uplifted and united in an unrealistic way, when their beloved team wins the World Cup. Or is there?

When I look at the evolution of Cricket, especially in recent times since the advent of Twenty20 leagues, I worry for the version of Cricket that is being embraced by the newer generations. Twenty20 has increased the 'every player on his own' syndrome, there is no doubt about that. With player-auctions, trade ins and exorbitant amounts of money changing hands, players are not people anymore, they are commodities. And in this environment, it just seems that the likelihood of an individual wanting to be a part of something bigger than himself is diminishing to dangerous depths.

Somewhere between cheerleading boundaries and making millions, playing for one’s country has ceased to be the greatest ambition.

There are players who refuse to play test cricket so they can preserve their bodies for IPL. There are even examples of players who have given up national contracts to play the ‘freelancing’ and more lucrative versions of Cricket!! There is nothing wrong with creating alternate avenues for aspiring Cricketers, but when concert-arenas replace the cathedrals of Cricket, does it not feel that something has been fundamentally violated?

Is Cricket no more about dying for your country to win the World Cup, or that Test Series against arch rivals? If not there yet, is Cricket heading down that path?

As people, should we also change our expectations, and value quickfire-30-ball-50s in a rock-concert-arena, more than we value a gritty century that saves a Test after 12 hours of unwavering focus?

Would doing so fundamentally change Cricket? Or would it always remain a contest between a bat and a ball, only changing faces to keep up with the evolving market? After all as consumers we get what we want, right? And this shorter-slicker version of Cricket certainly sells better. Perhaps there are even possibilities of Ten10 or Five5 out there, with World tournaments that will start and conclude over the weekend. This is supposedly the version that will bring Cricket to the Olympics and markets like the USA. This is the version that is going to take Cricket to unprecedented heights.

But is this the version that will murder Cricket as we know it today?

The narrative of spending 5 hours with your Mom making mathri could now be replaced with a quick trip to the supermarket to get microwavable ones. The objective is achieved, but the journey is lost.

Romantics like me will hang on to dying Test cricket for as long as we can while keeping the passion of playing for one's country alive in little blogs like these. But the cruel fact is that we live in a world where longevity is defined by commercial viability, and the desire to conserve something pure has to make sense in dollars and cents.

So, if Test Cricket passes on, would it be a defeat for us as a People? Or would we have been victims as well, at the hands of this system that only talks money, and doesn't understand love?