An International ODI at the iconic Eden Gardens should be a big event. But with less than 10% tickets sold till 15 minutes before the match meant that the public felt otherwise. The just concluded home series against England has helped ease the pain of the horrendous tour of England, but it has raised serious question marks about the popularity of the game in India. Throughout the series, we have witnessed two things consistently, India’s dominance at home, and the public’s lack of interest in this dominance. What could have lead to this lack of interest in the cricket fanatic public of our nation?
The BCCI could be given some leeway that it was hampered by the absence of the superstars of Indian cricket, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and Zaheer Khan. There is no secret in the fact that the Little Master still has the ability to attract crowds by his mere presence. But a lot of question marks can be raised about the lack of logic and planning by the BCCI with the scheduling of this series.
India had just returned from a lengthy tour of England, and then facing the same team again on your home soil does not make much sense. The same sets of players have now been competing against each other for almost 3 months. Also the venues for the ODIs were also venues for the IPL earlier in the year. With the ridiculous champion’s league and the tremendously successful World Cup also staging matches at these venues, the stadium going public would have been saturated. If the series was to be conducted, it would have made much more sense to host them at smaller towns. The BCCI’s rigid policy of selecting venues in a round robin manner needs a change. Assuming that the ICC is indeed responsible for the future tour’s programme, surely the governing body could be more sensible in scheduling International tours.
While this series has highlighted the issue of diminishing interest, this is not completely out of the blue. For some years now the Indian public has shown a complete lack of interest for the domestic cricket. Thus a consistent performer making his debut in International cricket is welcomed with reactions of ‘Yeh Kaun Hai Bhai?’. Ask a common man to differentiate between Ranji, Duleep and Irani Trophy and he would simply say, ‘I don’t Care’. The reason for this is simple, the BCCI itself doesn’t care. Live telecast of Australian and English domestic cricket on Indian television is a big eye-opener. Apart from the fact that their domestic matches are telecast in another country, the huge crowds in the stadiums tell us that cricket after all is not that boring a game. The BCCI might be minting money from the IPL and the Champion’s League (hard to believe I know), but International cricketers are not born in 3 hours of mayhem, they are produced by the grinds of tough first class cricket.
The BCCI could start off with reviving the domestic cricket scene in India. As a very first step, the quality of pitches could be looked at. Sporty wickets which give equal opportunity to both bat and ball and produce results will generate good cricket. Currently in Ranji cricket, we see sides winning based on first innings lead because 4 days are just not enough to produce 40 wickets. With the huge number of teams, the quality of cricket is not at its best. A league based approach with 10 teams in each league would ensure teams competing at the same level and the battle to avoid relegation adding a new dimension. Also a small percentage of the energy used in the T20 marketing blitzkrieg, if invested towards the less appealing but much more important version of domestic cricket, will generate some much needed interest.
Cricket needs its fans as much as they need it. Having said that, the game of cricket will probably never die in this country, but as with most things in life, taking anything for granted can be dangerous. Small measures would ensure the crowds come back to the stadiums in huge numbers and again be the 12th man they can be. The gentleman’s game is not yet dead, it’s just entered a slumber and we need to awaken it from it!!
Die hard Indian, will not let the game die!!Sanjay
