RIP cricket

The searing April heat was hardly a deterrent. The bigger question was how to enter the grounds. Unable to afford a ticket, I looked for an avenue to sneak into the Ferozeshah Kotla, where Delhi was playing Bombay in a Ranji Trophy semifinal in late ’70s. To some of us it was no less than a Test match. The teams included international stars like Sunil Gavaskar, Eknath Solkar, Bishan Singh Bedi and Mohinder Amarnath. Cricket was at its best, as a near-packed Kotla savoured some fierce competition and both teams enjoyed staunch support. But how was one to enter those hallowed grounds?

I remember jumping across from the adjacent Ambedkar Stadium, and one of my friends slipping and suffering a fracture. Our friend missed out on the live action, but we provided him a ball-by-ball account later that day. Thirty years later, the joke is that any spectator sauntering into the Kotla, or for that matter any stadium hosting a first-class match, will be greeted with a garland.

Is it time then to weep for the game of cricket?

Five years ago, the legendary West Indian batsman Brian Lara remarked cricket was a “dying sport”, even as he backed the Twenty20 format. Lara told Jamaica Observer, “Twenty20 is going to be beneficial for many reasons. The new game has brought in a different spectator. Not necessarily the right one… the one who wants to go to the game but doesn’t know what happens on the field.”

Today the game suffers not only from a surfeit of matches but also the shortened format. A mere 20 off eight balls is hailed as a “great effort”; two wickets for 20 runs earns the bowler profuse praise.

While it’s true that the spirited Australia-England Ashes tie continues to hold the attention of cricket lovers worldwide, it’s also increasingly clear that the longer version of the game has fallen victim to modern attractions such as the T20 even in those countries.

How the might have fallen

A few years ago, I watching a first-class match at Ferozeshah Kotla when the former batting great Mohinder Amarnath called. I invited him to join me at the stadium, which he once lit up with some fascinating knocks. Watching the game with me from the pavilion, he said, “Don’t tell me you cover this cricket… very poor standards. I can’t believe this is domestic cricket.” A couple of years later he was traversing the country, forced to watch domestic cricket as a national selector. His views did not change.

Amarnath belongs to a generation for which a domestic match was not to be missed at any cost. Some of the duels — Bombay vs Delhi or Karnataka vs Delhi — would be the stuff of international gamesmanship. Even Amarnath’s younger colleagues notice a fall in standards. VVS Laxman, famous for his stirring knocks against formidable opponents, confessed he was “disappointed” with the drop in quality in 2012, when he spent a season on the domestic circuit after retiring from international cricket. “The standards of spin bowling have come down,” he said. He was also shocked at the absence of spectators.

With Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis, Ricky Ponting, Brian Lara and Graeme Smith leaving the field, there is a profound dearth of classy cricket in the international circuit. They were great because they took the game to a different level, leading by example and setting benchmarks. They played with dignity and won appreciation with their longevity. It is hard to imagine today’s cricketer lasting beyond 10 years given the amount of cricket being played.

Older fans are losing interest with the fall in standards. The aggression with which club cricket is played in India gives the impression of a ‘gang war’ rather than the avowed gentleman’s game. As S Ganesh, a passionate club cricketer says, “This aggression does not translate into better cricket in India.”

Domestic cricket has suffered due to poor structuring and planning, as also fleeting appearances by the stars. Mahendra Singh Dhoni has played barely one first-class match for his home team, Jharkhand, since his international debut.

Empty house

‘Two men and a dog’ is how English cricket writers often sum up the audience on the county circuit. “Many football clubs have more spectators for one game than some counties manage in a year,” wrote the seasoned scribe Scyld Berry in The Telegraph in 2013. The reasons ranged from lack of interest to mediocre play and fans confined indoors by the wet summer. But the clincher was the attraction of football and tennis matches, where the intensity of competition has rarely been compromised. The International Cricket Council has failed to add one decent Test team to the eight longtime cricket-playing nations.

This brings to mind a bizarre incident that took place in Mumbai on March 12, 1995. Former greats from India and the West Indies were playing a one-day match at the packed Brabourne Stadium. The sold-out tickets and long queues proved that quality, not just nostalgia, was paramount. At the Wankhede Stadium next door, Bombay was playing Uttar Pradesh in a Ranji Trophy semifinal. Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli were part of a run-glut as Bombay batted in one-day style. But this match saw near-empty stands.

A rare stage had brought together Viv Richards and Kapil Dev in a not-to-be-missed encounter six years after their retirement. Today, a similar venture would most likely fall flat because of the surfeit of such matches on television and the Web. Names such as David Gower, Salim Durani or Graeme Pollock ring no bell among younger spectators, many of whom see even Gavaskar as a commentator rather than a former opening batsman.

Today there is fan fatigue. Cricket is mainly watched on TV and less at the grand stadiums such as Eden Gardens (Kolkata), MA Chidambaram Stadium (Chennai), Brabourne Stadium and Chinnaswamy Stadium (Bangalore). The roar of the audience is no longer heard in the world of domestic cricket, not even for a Twenty20 match. Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir batted for Delhi in the North Zone T20 league this April with practically no one watching.

Former Test skipper Dilip Vengsarkar admits, “There is a perceptible decline in cricket watching.” He was at his prime when the derby of Indian domestic cricket, a Delhi-Bombay match, was the most-awaited annual event, attracting spectators in the thousands. As a key batsman, Vengsarkar served Mumbai with distinction for 17 seasons. Sometimes his team faltered. But the spectators never complained.

Today, there are no tickets for domestic matches. Sunil Dev, a veteran Delhi cricket official says, “We could not recover the cost of printing tickets, and so it was best to make the gates free.” But even free access is no guarantee for packed stands. Apart from the players and officials, there is no one else watching or cheering. Imagine a batsman completing a century with only his camp to applaud him.

Ads ad infinitum

In India, excessive commercialisation of the game has eroded the fan base. The incessant advertisements, sponsorship deals for cricketers and the relentless chatter of expert comments before, during and after the game are nauseating. Security concerns and the attendant checks are robbing the joy of afternoons spent relishing a match from the stands.

The disproportionate focus on cricket also dries up funds and viewership for other sports in the country. For instance, an insignificant International Lawyers’ match (played by portly gentlemen struggling to take a single) is telecast live while there is no coverage for chess champ Viswanathan Anand taking on Magnus Carlsen.

Ganesh traces the predominant position enjoyed by the game in India to the World Cup victory in 1983. TV channels and marketing gurus would have you believe that it is the only sport pursued in India. “One of the primary reasons is that with IPL becoming so huge, players are interested only in being successful at IPL. Even a Virender Sehwag feels that a successful stint in IPL may get him a place in the Indian Test team,” he says, adding that in reality, however, success at the IPL does not translate into success in other forms (especially Test cricket), as is evident in the case of players such as Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh.

Lack of sponsorship for domestic cricket is a clear indication of where market interests lie. The administrators make no effort to attract the younger generation to cricket venues, even after Tendulkar had advocated “free access” for the student community.

When several key players missed training ahead of a crucial contest against Pakistan in the Asia Cup last month, Gavaskar had slammed them on TV, saying, “India’s work ethic has been pretty abysmal. It has let the team down. They have not practised well and there cannot be something like ‘optional practice’.”

One of the players, Ambati Rayudu, pleaded the “fatigue factor” in his defence. For old-timers, this was entirely unacceptable.

Cricket fatigue is a modern invention to describe the empty stands for domestic cricket. But former Mumbai skipper Amol Muzumdar, who over 20 years played in 171 first-class matches, some in remote venues such as Porvorim in Goa and Cuddapah in AP, is unconvinced. “If there is no fatigue when earning money through cricket, then there should be no fatigue from playing cricket… As for spectators, they have matured enough to distinguish between bad cricket and good cricket.”

“Cricket on television every day” was how the former BCCI president IS Bindra visualised the future of the game. Sadly, there has been such an overdose that fans struggle to remember the previous day’s results. The future of the game, Test cricket for sure, lies in small centres. If administrators don’t mend their ways and reduce the number of matches played in a season, and don’t stop tampering with the format, the game faces a bleak future.

Twenty20 is being flogged because it brings in revenues and younger followers for the game. The signs are ominous, though. Australia and South Africa played a seven-overs-a-side match last March. It would be catastrophic if they invented Twenty10 at the cost of common sense, tradition and value.

(The writer is deputy editor, sports, The Hindu)