Cricket is a legacy of the Raj but American elements are slowly creeping into its newest avatar.
It’s a tournament that showcases the newest form of the sport, Twenty20 has all the biggest names of the game, it’s happening in a part of the world that’s synonymous with gaiety, music and the good life, and yet the spectacle simply does not grab you. Why is the World Cup T20, that has all the top cricketers playing for natonal pride, looking so lacklustre? Have we, thanks to the Indian Premier League, unconsciously begun to expect blonde cheerleaders, swaying deejays, filmstars and floodlights as part of the cricket menu, at least in the T20 version? Cricket is a legacy of the Raj, but are American elements slowly creeping into its newest avatar? Has IPL changed everything about the sport, even our expectations?
Today we want a short game, we want it to be a complete package with good music, cheerleaders, a deejay egging us on and, of course, a couple of celebrities in attendance. T20 is in many ways cricket’s American cousin, and it’s no surprise that some T20 games are being planned in America later this month.
The Americans are the pioneers in everything that equates to sports-plus. Cheerleaders, that is girls forming acrobatic groups to dance and encourage their teams were first seen in the 1920s, initially at the University of Minnesota. From Minnesota to the Mumbai Indians has taken almost a century, but cheerleaders, mostly Caucasian, are now part of the T20 package. In fact the IPL team, Royal Challengers Bangalore got cheerleaders from the American NFL team Washington Redskins to cheer them on, in the first editions of the IPL.
If the cricket is not pulsating enough, and if the cheerleaders are not fetching enough, there are other sidelights that can keep viewers happy. So we have Bipasha Basu and A R Rahman dishing out some Bollywood hits in their respective and inimitable styles. This adds to TRPs, and all modern sports forums and associations worship a deity called television. If the song and dance routine brings non-traditional groups of viewers into cricket’s all-embracing arms, sports channels will induct them into the package.
With the same TRPs in mind, we had an awards ceremony that took place even when controversies were swirling around the league. That, we are told, will be aired on a general entertainment channel over the weekend. Promos are already on air, and they feature Katrina Kaif’s moves interspersed with smiles and giggles from young Indian cricketers.
The awards ceremony is pretty unique to India, but opening and closing ceremonies, and gigs during a game, are an integral part of American sport. The notorious wardrobe malfunction took place during a song and dance routine featuring Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson at halftime during the Super Bowl in 2004. Interestingly, IPL took a leaf out of the baseball book and also sold rights to MTV for after-game parties.
The Super Bowl halftime act was also produced by MTV.
The shift is clear — we are crossing the Atlantic when it comes to our cricket culture. The English like their sport to be steeped in tradition, and music at a football game is usually the crowd singing in unison. Wimbledon is still All England and all white — their only concession being to do away with the bows and courtesies before and after a match at Centre Court, when royalty is in attendance. And you still have to wear a tie to sit in the member’s pavilion at Lord’s.
It’s a little ironical that India, which is 10 hours ahead of the US east coast, has managed to imbibe and implement the sports extras better than the West Indies, which is on the US side of the Atlantic Ocean. Perhaps it’s because Americanism has already crept into many aspects of our lives. Music, cinema, spellings, fashion — we are all more Americanised, or should we say Americanized today than we were even 15 years ago.
Every evening we hear experts of (to put it politely) the mature age group saying that the IPL looks like the WWF (World Wrestling Federation), which is all entertainment but no sport. That is unfair on the cricketers, but the good news is that nobody is paying much attention to these experts. In a country where 50 per cent of the population below 25, the IPL has smartly worked out who holds the remote control in India’s living rooms.
A few old-timers would feel nostalgic about a time when entertainment was an elegant off-drive from a cherubic David Gower. Today it’s all about short innings, boundaries, hemlines, and a deejay who rings out hit numbers and bowling changes with equal facility. Shortly after the World Cup, Sri Lanka and New Zealand will be playing three T20 games in Miami. The game might look alien, but the cheerleaders and the music will be a good starting point for the Americans who might turn up.
(Malavika R Banerjee is director, Gameplan, a sports marketing company)
