As we knew it !
Cricket was designed as a game to engage and entertain the families of the elite bureaucrats of the former British Empire. It survived Two World Wars (so what ?) and flourished in some of the former English colonies. Despite having a 200 years of legacy, decent money and glamour (till 2008) and yet only handful of countries decided to take it seriously. Going by shear numbers its safe to assume that almost 20% of the world population simply loves this game, and its considered not second to religion. But to put the numbers in perspective only 8 teams (countries) have been playing it consistently, seriously for more then 20 years now.
And then 2008 happened ! Yes, it survived the two world wars but not the year 2008.
Kim Raikkonen tops the charts of all time highest paid sportsperson per game ($2.94M/ game), whereas Alex Rodriguez tops the list for signing the world's largest sports contract ($275M contract for a period of 10 years) to date.
The most respected, successful of the football, baseball, basketball players play for around 30-60 minutes in a game, few games in a season and make millions. But, and this one will be a big but, mind you, what if they are asked to play the full game and all the games and all the series and tournaments possible in a year?
Remember the age old adage, Goose that Lays the Golden Egg ! So lets kill that goose and take out all the eggs at a time. Perhaps a 8 years old will tell us that the Goose the will die, but we grown ups have grown past the wisdom of age old adage, especially the ones sitting in cricketing councils, the die-hard fans and the business savvy czars and tycoons !
Usain Bolt can do a 100 in 9.58 (10.43841/sec) seconds but Patrick Makau could do a 42195 in 7418 seconds (5.688191/sec), so does that mean Bolt can run a marathon in half the time of current world record, if he wants to ? All the forms of sports have understood that its one thing to cross English channel and its totally different to swim a 50 mtr breast stroke. I hope as the cricket spreads it reach to more continents, as more and more league culture develop sponsors and board members will focus on nurturing and appointing three sets of specialists for the three prevalent forms of the game.
Cricket is a gentlemen's game, so lets not reduce it to a tug of war between the three formats !
No denying the obvious that IPL has added several new dimensions, adrenalin, cheer girls, 10x more money for 10x more players, benefiting the game in general, certainly a good beginning in a right direction.
So lets not kill the goose. We should not expect a cricketer to run a marathon in the fastest possible time and should not procrastinate a marathon runner for not being able to run a mile the fastest. Instead of putting all the monies in the factory which produces cricketers only on the fertile soil of Indian sub-continent, lets try to develop at least 29 good international cricket playing teams, so that I can no longer use my fingers.
Lets raise the ceiling because, there certainly is enough room to generate 10x more money then currently under consideration. IPL has certainly added cheer girls and several powerful aspects to the game, but both the crickets and those powerful people are trying to kill the goose, so as to make all the hay while the sun shines.
Dear Sponsors, Crickets boards, Trust me there will be a tomorrow and the Sun will shine all over again !!
Cricket was designed as a game to engage and entertain the families of the elite bureaucrats of the former British Empire. It survived Two World Wars (so what ?) and flourished in some of the former English colonies. Despite having a 200 years of legacy, decent money and glamour (till 2008) and yet only handful of countries decided to take it seriously. Going by shear numbers its safe to assume that almost 20% of the world population simply loves this game, and its considered not second to religion. But to put the numbers in perspective only 8 teams (countries) have been playing it consistently, seriously for more then 20 years now.
And then 2008 happened ! Yes, it survived the two world wars but not the year 2008.
Kim Raikkonen tops the charts of all time highest paid sportsperson per game ($2.94M/ game), whereas Alex Rodriguez tops the list for signing the world's largest sports contract ($275M contract for a period of 10 years) to date.
The most respected, successful of the football, baseball, basketball players play for around 30-60 minutes in a game, few games in a season and make millions. But, and this one will be a big but, mind you, what if they are asked to play the full game and all the games and all the series and tournaments possible in a year?
Remember the age old adage, Goose that Lays the Golden Egg ! So lets kill that goose and take out all the eggs at a time. Perhaps a 8 years old will tell us that the Goose the will die, but we grown ups have grown past the wisdom of age old adage, especially the ones sitting in cricketing councils, the die-hard fans and the business savvy czars and tycoons !
Usain Bolt can do a 100 in 9.58 (10.43841/sec) seconds but Patrick Makau could do a 42195 in 7418 seconds (5.688191/sec), so does that mean Bolt can run a marathon in half the time of current world record, if he wants to ? All the forms of sports have understood that its one thing to cross English channel and its totally different to swim a 50 mtr breast stroke. I hope as the cricket spreads it reach to more continents, as more and more league culture develop sponsors and board members will focus on nurturing and appointing three sets of specialists for the three prevalent forms of the game.
Cricket is a gentlemen's game, so lets not reduce it to a tug of war between the three formats !
No denying the obvious that IPL has added several new dimensions, adrenalin, cheer girls, 10x more money for 10x more players, benefiting the game in general, certainly a good beginning in a right direction.
So lets not kill the goose. We should not expect a cricketer to run a marathon in the fastest possible time and should not procrastinate a marathon runner for not being able to run a mile the fastest. Instead of putting all the monies in the factory which produces cricketers only on the fertile soil of Indian sub-continent, lets try to develop at least 29 good international cricket playing teams, so that I can no longer use my fingers.
Lets raise the ceiling because, there certainly is enough room to generate 10x more money then currently under consideration. IPL has certainly added cheer girls and several powerful aspects to the game, but both the crickets and those powerful people are trying to kill the goose, so as to make all the hay while the sun shines.
Dear Sponsors, Crickets boards, Trust me there will be a tomorrow and the Sun will shine all over again !!
you are basically against the increase in amount of cricket and not IPL itself, if i could understand correctly, and i am in total agreement with that sentiment.
ReplyDeleteI, for one, fully support IPL because this takes away the whole farce of attaching nation's pride to one game and change the fervor completely. It also gives me the joy of watching sachin opening the inning with jayasuriya. By the way, i have no opinion about T20 per se and would refrain to get entangled in that argument. but given any format, and T20 seems to fit the bill most, I like this club format more than Indian "national" team playing 20 tests and 60 ODI in a year.
thanks for the comment Hitesh. I am not against cricket and am not against increase in the cricket volume, but I think its happening in very small pockets. Despite 300 odd years of history, handful of nations play cricket and ICC is to blame for it...they haven't done enough and just tried to take the simple route of en-cashing most from whatever is happening...such model of sports will always have limited money and scope for players...I think the club format will soon be extended in One-day cricket if not Test matches....
DeleteI have another theory and would like your opinion on it.
ReplyDeleteI believe india being a poor country, relatively poorer from 80s to 00s, could not support many sports at mass level and winning the world cup in 83 gave cricket that spot. Following a sport and being a spectator, on ground or on TV, must mean some economical/ social cost thats why relatively poor country would be able to afford fewer games than a relatively rich nation where people can afford to follow different/ multiple sports.
in this respect, i am more hopeful now for other sports in india as with increased economical activity, this country may also support more than one sport. i do not see cricket going any where in near future but others also making some presence felt and not as marginalized as they had become.
I agree about the socio-economic sense to certain extent but sports must not be seen purely as entertainment, its about national pride, excellence, talent and a forum to showcase human capabilities. We must not forget tht several poor countries have done well in several sports and India too had its share of talent...Complete lack of interest, wide scale corruption and politicians running sports bodies for decades has stolen all those moments of pride and joy which Indian sports fan might have enjoyed otherwise. BCCI cant take an iota of credit for 83 and we never needed billions of dollars to built onto the legacy of success of our track and field athletes or the hockey teams...we are a huge and diverse country and so we should have a huge and diverse appetite for sports, which unfortunately isn't the case as of now.
DeleteIf we leave everything on clubs, private sector, we cant expect to win medals in Olympics, we can expect to create more hero/lone stalwarts but not great teams !
I agree to you, we need cricket to be spread to 20 more countries, but practically I don't see that happening in years
ReplyDeleteappreciate your comments always Arnab. I agree with you, unless some conscious efforts are made by ICC..things wont change on their own....but IPL and the club cricket can bring that change...lets see
DeleteI agree with you Nitin when you say that IPL is like killing the golden egg laying goose. But have you not considered the limelight falling on the young & talented local cricketers of India? Do you think, without IPL, they would have survived with cricket as their passion? Now these youngsters can take cricket as a proud profession.
ReplyDeleteI honor your thoughts. What you have conveyed is definitely true. Perhaps there are always many disadvantage assosciated with very few advantages.
I'm not sayin Mak that IPL is killing the cricket...I think too much of cricket in too few countries is killing the cricket. thanks for the comment...hope to read from you here !
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