AGENDA | Sunday, June 21, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Out of our league
Placing the T20 world cup debacle in a context where India controls 70 per cent of the cricket economy, Ashok Malik says sponsors and advertisers will not come in unless Indians have a stake till the proverbial last ball, a scenario where domestic stars in a domestic League like the IPL could dwarf all other forms of the game
India’s early defeat in the second Twenty20 (T20) world cup in England this past week has implications far beyond the emotions of its cricket fans. True, Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men played below expectation and the disappointment of cricket fans is understandable. India was the defending champion. Given the Indian Premier League (IPL) is now the most developed and high profile domestic T20 competition, India was also expected to have the best pool of T20-ready players.
Finally, the team was on a roll, having tasted success in Tests and Fifty50 (F50) tournaments and surged in the 18 months since its 2007 T20 world cup victory.
The dream ended rudely in England. India lost badly. More important, its batsmen proved weak against bouncers and short-pitched bowling, invoking a ghost that one thought Indian cricket had long exorcised. The weakness of Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma — the core of India’s emergent middle order — against quality fast bowling must have left team buffs distinctly uncomfortable.
Both Sharma and Raina are extremely talented and fluent batsmen. They have scored heavily for India in F50 games as well as in the IPL. It would be stupid to write them off. Yet, what the T20 world cup showed was that the two were not finished articles, still works-in-progress. If nothing else, this establishes that should Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman suddenly depart, India will miss them — their successors still need time to settle down at cricket’s top level.
Unfortunately, a reasoned, sober assessment is not what Indian cricket is known for. Instead, the team is being criticised, the defeat is being over-dissected and captain Dhoni has quickly gone from hero to zero — national poster boy to national whipping boy. In all this even a commonsensical observation by the coach, Gary Kirsten, that many of his players were exhausted after the gruelling IPL has been twisted out of shape and denounced as an excuse.
The fact is Indian cricket is a media circus. Prime-time news shows discuss cricket endlessly, giving former players the chance to hold forth on issues they often know nothing about. Every victory and every defeat is exaggerated. Controversies and fan sentiments are heightened and given a life they don’t deserve. The T20 world cup post mortem has fallen victim to this template.
Yet again, the underlying message is Indian fans don’t love cricket as much as they love the Indian team or particular Indian stars. Perhaps that is not unusual and is true for sports fans from any country, following any sport. Yet, in cricket, the Indian fan’s opinion matters disproportionately. This is a country that controls 70 per cent of the cricket economy. As such, what India thinks has the rest of the cricket world making plans.
The T20 world cup defeat must be analysed in this context. Cricket is in the midst of a year of seismic changes. Between this summer and the next, the shortest form of the game — T20 — will likely become the dominant product.
Consider the schedule. Played in South Africa in April-May 2009, the second season of the IPL heralded this transformational year. It was followed by the T20 World Cup in England. Next the Champions League will be played in India, in the Diwali season, when advertising levels are at a peak.
In March-April 2010, there is IPL III. This will lead to another T20 World Cup in the West Indies in April-May 2010. That World Cup is being held in lieu of a F50 Champions’ Trophy. ESPN-Star Sports, which has the telecast rights, has persuaded the International Cricket Council (ICC) to replace F50 with T20.
In this entire period, only one big-ticket conventional cricket series will be played — the Ashes in summer 2009. Unfortunately, the England-Australia clash is scarcely a big draw in India.
Already television broadcasters are saying they no more find Test matches and conventional one-day internationals (ODIs) marketable and lucrative. In 2008-09, India played its finest ever home season — beating Australia and England. The matches were played to empty seats and dwindling television ratings.
Neo Sports, the broadcaster, scarcely made money.
In contrast, the two IPLs and T20 world cups have been bonanzas. T20 cricket is not just the new game in town; it’s pretty much the only game in town.
So what’s this got to do with the rout Dhoni’s XI suffered in England? It’s just that it could have decided the hierarchy even within the paradigm of T20 cricket — with the world cup losing out to the IPL.
If one takes into account both F50 and T20 formats, India has now lost early in two of the past three world cups. The previous time this happened was in 2007, when India was knocked out in the first round of the ODI World Cup in the West Indies, beaten by Bangladesh.
With India crashing out, that World Cup was a dud investment for the impressive array of sponsors the International Cricket Council (ICC) had signed up. All of them — Hero Honda to LG to Pepsi Cola — were looking at the Indian market, at Indian consumers, fans and television audiences. The Indian team’s failure meant disaster.
The idea of the IPL came up at this point. Cricket was too big a business to be left to unpredictable players. Sponsors wanted guarantees. They sought a tournament where an Indian presence was certain till the very end, in which Indian fans had a stake till the proverbial last ball.
So was born the IPL — eight Indian teams, most of them alive and kicking till the final week or so of a six-week event; Indian players and Indian stars destined to play a role from match one to the final. Indians fans were sure to stay tuned. The sponsors got their money’s worth.
The ICC had to find an answer. It decided to ration international T20 games and limit these largely to its world cup. Riding on the momentum of the IPL — in both 2009 and 2010, the tournaments are taking place back-to-back — the T20 world cup was expected to be the ICC’s flagship revenue earner. The Indian team’s success was taken for granted.
Now that it hasn’t quite turned out that way, Indian cricket’s sponsors and stakeholders are going to do a rethink. Already, the IPL authorities are talking of two such tournaments every year — one in India in April, the other overseas, in different countries each year. Where will this leave the world cup? It may see high quality cricket but Indian money will not flow in unless Indian success is assured. That’s the harsh, cynical truth.
The point is Indian cricket and the IPL are becoming like English football. The cash, the fans and the frenzy are in the English Premier League, in Manchester United and Arsenal. English clubs are paramount; the England team and its performance in the European Nations Cup or FIFA World Cup is a lesser priority.
That’s not always how fans see it. They would love England to win the World Cup every time. Yet, in the absence of that, they’re happy to settle for domestic stars in a domestic league. The sponsors and the very business of sport propel them in that direction.
As Dhoni and company come back from their hang-dog T20 world cup campaign, will India too retreat into the League of its own? In 2010, will the IPL dwarf the T20 world cup and, indeed, all international cricket?
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