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There’s this wholly mythical idea about the Indians' love for cricket. It is often touted as the reason why there’s no level playing field in India, the cause behind other sports finding the going tough. People don’t arrive in hordes to see, say, a hockey match, as they do at a one-day cricket fixture. People don’t spend couch time on, say, volleyball, as they do on a T20 contest. But let me say it out straight: No, Indians are not crazy about cricket.
Just this morning, I asked a sports-loving colleague whether he knew the Duleep Trophy final had begun today. He shook his head and went to Google to confirm the news. Well, if you didn’t know, the Duleep Trophy is a top cricket tournament, being played now for 53 years among the best of cricket talent available in a zonal format. And big performers do play in it. Did you know, for instance, that Naman Ojha, wicketkeeper-batsman for Central Zone, before his poor 4 in the first innings of the final, had scored 219 not out, 101 not out, 110 (all for India A against Australia A in Brisbane), 217 and 40 (for Central Zone in the current Duleep Trophy tournament)? No, you didn’t? But you surely knew that Dhawal Kulkarni would be playing in place of an injured Mohammed Shami against the Sri Lankans in the five-match series starting on November 2. Of course, you did. How could you be a cricket lover if you didn’t even know this!
There you see. India loves cricket. But the cricket India loves is not the cricket that the hardworking, unheralded players play before empty stadiums. It is not the cricket that hones skills and creates the foundations for careers as professional players. It is not the cricket where you see players like Ali Murtaza and Akshay Wakhare, Ramaswamy Prasanna and Malolan Rangarajan, Vasudevan Jagadeesh and Ravi Kiran. Why, you do not even see much of this cricket on television, and if you do, it is, like the Duleep Trophy final, not telecast in high-definition with a star cast of commentators.
The cricket that India almost follows as a religion is the one created by the Board for Control of Cricket in India ( BCCI) with the help of television. Its reigning deities are MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli. Far from the rustic playing fields of real India, this cricket is played in modern arenas with technical finesse, accompanied by fireworks and cheerleaders and special anthems. These matches are often touted as death-defying contests against perennial enemies. No one talks of cricket in such terms when it is about Jharkhand playing against Goa.
This strain of cricket depends on television for its sustenance and for its finances. It is, therefore, in more ways than one cricket created by consummate artifice, having retained everything of interest to viewers while rejecting all the dross of real cricket. It may not have been an easy task to create this new type of cricket, but it is not undoable. Kabaddi and football have shown that television can prove to be the magic wand that transforms a poor sports into a Cindrella discipline. Business Standard correspondent Urvi Malavani reported last week that the Hero Indian Super League football, promoted by Star TV, is the most watched sports event on television after the Indian Premier League cricket gala. In third place is, once again, the TV-heavy Pro Kabaddi League.
In the meantime, the Duleep Trophy final grinds itself out, uncheered by crowds, ignored by television viewers. Real things can’t always be entertaining, can they?
