Cricket: Much Ado About Nothing

The day has come for me, I think that even I would be shouting that Cricket is "Opium of mass" as few people call it which first creates the enthusiasm to taste it once again, makes us feel drowsy, lazy n blah n blah, we reach to a peak and then in the end it takes us nowhere. Now that India is out of the World Cup, watching the games has become a pleasurable, anxiety-free, almost aesthetic exercise. My nails are beginning to grow back; hair fall rate as decreased; I go office peacefully. I have stopped giving the sofa a hammering every three minutes; and my family, I hope, will soon stop scolding me once he begins to forget the swear words he picked up by being in my presence during the India games. It’s great fun, unadulterated fun, watching the cricket now. (In fact, it’s a little like the football World Cup: No India, great games.)But there is this one thing: Is it ever possible to watch any sport without actually supporting one of the two sides? (Or players if it happens to be an individual sport.) I think not.

While watching England play Australia (or X plays Y when neither is India) I am not as tortured as I would be if India plays, but I am very engaged with the fortunes of a particular side. The game itself gives great pleasure; but we need to identify with one of the two teams to give the experience of watching that extra frisson. But I am yet to decide which side I really want to go all the way. (In football, it’s always an easy choice. Ever since Diego Mara Dona arrived, I have been an Argentina supporter.) But I shall have to make up my mind soon. This ends my views, which of course are the results of sheer emotion coming with certain oh-so-not-met expectations, anguishes, anxiety etc.

Let’s talk about the bit of politics or say ‘The way it works” behind all this, for which, one big chunk of credit goes to our well-known Indian bureaucracy. In politics we say that your enemies can't hurt you, but your friends will kill you. It is the same here. Regarding the great BCCI, The Board of Control for Cricket in India has the dubious distinction of being the only full member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) which does not have a website. This, in the 21st century in the home of computer software, is a shocking commentary on the administration that's engaged in running cricket in India. What an irony. Coach Greg Chappell may have become the fall guy or say has been made the main fall guy in the wake of India's disastrous showing in the World Cup, the best replacement money can buy can be recruited, younger players can be phased in and older players phased out; but there will be no material change without a complete reform of Indian cricket. But will it really happen is again a question our bureaucrats must answer.

Given the money at the BCCI's disposal - obtained directly or indirectly from the Indian people - the millions that play the game in India, they ought to have been world champions or thereabouts a long time ago. This would have occurred if only the sport had been administered proficiently. Australia, with far less financial resources, has achieved sustained excellence because cricket there has been administered professionally. So yes. Bravo Aussies. You deserved it. While writing so, I am a little scared though. It may happen that after four years again, I will be writing a similar stuff with Australia replaced with Bangladesh.

Let’s come back to BCCI. It takes days, some times weeks or may be months (God only knows) for the BCCI to summon a meeting of their members. The executive has to move from the hands of part-timers to full-time employees, from the incompetent to the competent, from the corrupt to the clean.

Now calling our players to the Janta ki Adaalat, the players concerned are certainly answerable - and heads must roll. Greg Chappell could only take them to the water, but not forced them to drink. But the BCCI is responsible for the snail-paced progress of Indian cricket in the international arena for 75 years, and some times even for the wheels going backwards. From the maharajas to the new barons, they have let India down rather badly. There has never been and there still isn't any blueprint for excellence.

The centre thinks cricket is of such national importance that it muscled in legislation to force private TV rights holders to share cricket coverage with the state broadcaster, Doordarshan (the only terrestrial broadcaster in the territory), so that people who cannot access or afford cable or direct-to-home (DTH) TV are not denied contact with cricket; and all political parties deemed such a bill to be equally significant to pass this unanimously. After all this is one way you can keep whole India busy in things which, in current scenario are the least important things. But what to do. We are also not ready to change. We want to “LIVE OUR PASSION” and we are living it ignoring all other more important things aside.

Both the central government and parliament, who in the name of acting in the interests of the wider Indian public made it compulsory for TV licensees to provide footage to DD, now have a duty to demand on behalf of the same Indian populace why Indian cricket has not dominated world cricket, as it ought to have? And why it degenerated to such depths in the World Cup?

Academies exist for the sake of them, rarely producing any exciting cricketers. Domestic tournaments are uncompetitive and held unsystematically. They are also never integrated with India's international calendar. The program is flush with one-day internationals, which fill the BCCI and their affiliated state associations' coffers, but achieve little by way of honing skills. I had laughed to the core when I had heard that our players had been given the commando trainings. Now even Mr. Subhas Chandra has thought of entering into this big business. Let’s hope something comes up because ultimately the only way out of it is the complete privatization of Cricket Industry. A dream… Huh.

There is typically no sense of tradition. International matches are allocated any and every where to keep various state federations happy and induce them into voting in favor of the controlling faction. There is no exploration of eligibility, no process of making venues compete with each other to earn the right to host important fixtures. Most of the stadiums are not only third-rate - despite the money sloshing through the administrators' fists - but the infrastructure of some of the cities and towns hosting matches is embarrassing.

The lawyers, politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen and even policemen who comprise the Indian cricketing hierarchy need to surrender their executive powers. The operations of the board must, within a stipulated time frame, pass to an efficient, knowledgeable and caring corporate structure. Unless this is initiated, all this chaos will be much ado about nothing.