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By Ashutosh Mishra
Bhubaneswar: The success of the first-ever day and night cricket test match in India played at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens had created a buzz. That India won this pink ball contest with ease has only made the fans more euphoric about test cricket, like the two shorter versions of the game, being played under floodlights.
This has also renewed the debate about commercialisation of cricket. As India skipper Virat Kohli himself admitted at the post-match press conference marketing of test cricket, supposed to be the purest form of the game, is crucial to draw spectators to the ground. The game needs them and cricket Boards around the world need money to survive and thrive.
India, in fact, has been a late entrant to the day and night test cricket club. The first-ever floodlit Test match was played between Australia and New Zealand at the Adelaide Oval in November 2015. Since then more such matches have been played.
Modern cricket, let us face it, is a lot about ‘tamasha’ kind of entertainment complete with floodlights, cheerleaders and firecrackers. In the shorter versions of the game that mainly pander to the appetite of the hoi polloi for entertainment, even the outfits of players have become colourful. All this is designed to heighten the fun associated with 50-50 and T-20 formats.
The same thing may now happen to test cricket notwithstanding the objections of purists. What the purists don’t realise is that the taste of the people watching the game is changing and test cricket, its longest version, is beginning to bore them. In its traditional form, it is not only extremely slow at most of the times but also fails to produce results. One must realise that a tie in a 50-50 or T20 match and a draw in a test match are two completely different things. While a test matching ending in a draw is almost always boring a tie in the short versions of the game invariably implies edge-of-the-seat excitement.
It was Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket (WSC) in the 70s that started changing the taste of the cricket lovers. Packer, who wanted exclusive broadcasting rights to Australian cricket then held by the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), came up with a new format that drastically changed the nature of cricket. His ad campaign with the catchline “ Big Boys Play at Night,” was a big hit, thanks to the double entendre.
Ever since Packer’s invention has spawned many copycats. The most successful of these has been our own Indian Premier League (IPL) which has turned the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) into perhaps the richest cricket governing body of the world. The success of IPL, which is more entertainment than cricket, has led to the proliferation of clones in different parts of the world with most of them doing reasonably well though nowhere coming near its own commercial success.
In the process of commercialisation, the game has both lost and gained. It is drawing more people to the grounds and cricketers are coming up with some amazing innovations in batting and, occasionally, even bowling. The loss has been in the form of heavy compromise in technique. The straight bat as in ideal is now a thing of past. But the likes of Sehwag had made mincemeat of technique even before that.
So let’s not hesitate to make test cricket more entertaining and with that more lucrative for the respective boards. To quote Virat Kohli once again from his post-match conference at the Eden Gardens: “If you create an excitement only around the T20 cricket and not much around Test cricket then in the psyche of the fans there’s already a certain template that’s established.” He could not be more right.
(DISCLAIMER: This is an opinion piece. The views expressed are author’s own and have nothing to do with OTV’s charter or views. OTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same)
