Just the other day I was on the sofa watching Roger Fedex Federer play Rafael Rafa Nadal in the Wimbledon final. It was such an intriguing battle. Every point won had as much a sense of glory as was the feeling of agony in every point lost. When Nadal was handed the winner’s trophy, it spurred an endless array of flashes. I just lay on the sofa imagining a similar scene involving an Indian cricketer. But the truth is that cricket doesn’t have the global viewership, the extensive media coverage and hype that sports like Tennis, Soccer and a few others command. There were similar scenes when Spaniard Iker Cassilas lifted the Euro 2008 trophy a week back. I was watching the game and it was so absorbing that I couldn’t even get up for a minute and go grab a bottle of water from the refrigerator. The game had been such action packed that even at half time I had to wait for a commercial break in the half time show.
The reason for the high intensity in these sports seems to be the shorter duration of the course of play. A day’s play in one day and test cricket spans over seven to eight hours and its impossible for players to have the intensity of soccer and tennis for such a long duration. An ardent fan of cricket like me would still sit and enjoy watching Murali at his fiercest, bowling maidens and a stern Dravid sweating out to see him off and pounce on others. But this is not what will attract new fans and new loyalties. With time people will only find it more and more difficult to go to the venues for a whole day to watch a one day match or a day of test cricket. Television broadcasts might still have good viewership but definitely not for the whole duration of the game.
The best route of entry for new countries and new fans into cricket is probably the Twenty20 format. Once they start liking this format then automatically they will like the other forms like the fifty over and test cricket. Every cricketer understands that test cricket is the toughest test of a cricketer’s abilities but their need to be followers to acknowledge and praise their accomplishments.
Another interesting fact I came across in a television talk show was that in England, even the test matches have packed houses which was attributed to the higher percentage of middle aged and old aged population who had more leisure time. India on the other hand is a young country and as it moves the demography will change and at some point of time it would in the same phase as the developed countries are in now. Probably that phase will see people having more leisure time and a day out watching cricket would be what they would opt to do. But till then to attract the countries like China, Japan, USA etc to cricket and globalize the sport what cricket needs is probably Twenty20.
The efforts to organize Champions League, a knock out competition between the top two teams of the domestic T20 tournaments in various countries are well on the way. In all likeliness the tournament will be held in a 10 day window that exists in the ICC calendar between the final of the Champions trophy on September 28th and the start of the Bangalore test between India and Australia on October 9th. Most of the things are in place with Board presidents co-ordinating with each other except for the Venue which can well be UAE or India.
Popular belief says that this tournament isn’t going to be much interesting because the Indian Premier League sides will prove too much for others but this tournament could well end the same way as IPL did for those who had written out Rajasthan Royals. If the tournament as it is likely is staged in England the local players in IPL sides will have their task cut out with the ball seaming and swinging.
Indian Premier League has taken everybody by storm. The amount of fresh talent that’s been exposed would lead people to believe that there may be many new faces in team India. But the fact of the matter is that, only 15 or 16 players can be selected in the team and the players who were already there and there about have performed really well. There might be just a few inclusions in the batting and in the spin bowling departments.
Looking at the eight teams and the Indian players who have been the best in each its interesting to find that they are already in the national team.
Controversial Australian batsman Andrew
Symonds,who has been brought by Deccan Chargers at a whopping price of
$1.35 million, the highest after Mahendra Singh Dhoni, is all set to
make peace with Indian crowd and his ‘foe’ Harbhajan Singh in the
forthcoming DLF-IPL Twenty20 tournament.
Symonds,who arrived
Friday night, said he would be his normal self with Harbhajan with whom
he had a troubled relationship during the recent India-Australia series.
The
Queensland all-rounder was also ready for any crowd reaction, during
the tournament. “I have to be there. I need to be cooler. I have seen
worse things than this. The crowd was there during the last tour.
People are passionate about cricket in India,” he said.
Talking
about sledging, the burly Symonds believed it would not play a big part
in this form of cricket as it is faster as it is found in Test cricket.
“I
don’t think there will be much of sledging. The game is played much
faster. There will be lot of running around. We won’t have time for
sledging,” he said.
Asked whether he was surprised for the
highest bid that was made, Symonds said “I was talking about the
auction process with my teammates.
It is amazing sort of event.
I want to enjoy and play well in India.” On the low bid for his captain
Ricky Ponting, Symonds said, “It is part of the game. The bidding
system may change in next two or three years.”
On the growing
influence of IPL and whether he would prefer IPL or his country,
Symonds was hopeful that the International Cricket Council (ICC) will
find ways to solve this ticklish issue.
“Hopefully they will
find a remedy for players to play for the IPL and the country. The
boards would make way of everyone to be happy.” Symonds did not agree
T20 would push Test and ODI cricket to the background.
“I don’t
think Test cricket will take a backseat. There will be changes in the
game to make it interesting”. Symonds said he was looking forward to
play against his country teammates.
“It is something
different.We have been playing together for the last 10 years and now
it is a different competition. That will also be an interesting part of
the competition.”
Symonds said he had not seen other team list.
“But from what I have heard, Matthew Hayden’s (Chennai Super Kings)
team is a strong one.”
The ECB is all set to give IPL a run for it’s money from next year onwards. Unconfirmed reports suggests that ECB may be setting up it’s own league in same lines as that of IPL. Wow! just imagine, IPL vs EPL. We can expect a formal announcement within the next 2-3 days.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is about to unveil plans for a 20:20 cricket tournament to rival the much-publicised Indian Premier League (IPL), whose inaugural event gets underway next week. An informed source within the ECB disclosed that an announcement on the matter could come “within the next 72 hours”.
The “English Premier League” will in all probability involve all 18 first-class counties in England plus three to six overseas teams, including one from India, which could be the winners of the IPL or another 20:20 tournament held under the auspices of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
The blueprint for the “EPL” is to launch this definitely by 2010, but given the provocation provided by the IPL, efforts are bound to be made to bring this forward to 2009 or even strengthen the existing T20 competition in England, whose next edition is scheduled for July this year.
The proposed “EPL” will permit counties to include up to three overseas players in their sides in addition to “Kolpak” players or those who by virtue of their countries’ agreements with the European Union have a right to work as cricketers in the United Kingdom.
Provisionally, an “EPL” is expected to be slotted into a three week period in June and/or July, when there is normally little or no top level cricket in any other part of the world.
The live television rights for cricket in England, currently held by SKY SPORTS, extend up to and include the summer of 2009, when Australia are the tourists for the Ashes Test series. The ECB had already invited bids for the next four year period for such a licence commencing 2010.
However, following the surfacing of the IPL, the ECB are likely to revise their proposal and even, perhaps, permit interested parties to bid for specific tournaments (such as an “EPL”) in the calendar rather than the entire package of test, first-class and limited overs events.
It is understood that if an “EPL” extravaganza occupies the attractive June-July window, then the existing 20:20 tournament between counties may be advanced to May. In other words, the ECB could stage two 20:20 tournaments in a season instead of one.
The source revealed that the ECB’s commercial director recently made a presentation to board members about the potential of financial partners and sponsorship for an “EPL”. Interestingly, the concerned matches will occur at prime television time in India. This, given the fact that an Indian franchise, or state or zonal team, not to mention the likely presence of leading Indian players in English county squads, will take part in such a championship, could fetch significant revenues from Indian TV companies as well as advertisers and sponsors.
