CRICKET 2020

So, you thought the 2000s were crazy for the game of cricket? Think Again. Cricket’s real crazy decade lies ahead.

I CAN see you smirking at the obvious pun, dear cricket fan, but then the truth is sometimes like that – all you can do is smirk about it. In the last decade cricket endured the match fixing crisis, one that plunged the game into an existential crisis only to realize that a greater existential crisis was to follow in the form of a rogue format that stole a start on the established ones. Technology, globalization and financial success have formed a troika that has amplified the game’s commercial value much like what had happened in the asset markets across the world. Yes, ladies and gentlemen we are in the middle of a cricket bubble, one that threatens to alter some fundamentals when it bursts. I still wager that come the next decade we will still be playing the game with a bat and a ball, but whether or not that will be central to the outcome or the action, I cannot be sure.

Test matches, despite producing fascinating contests like New Zealand vs. Pakistan or Australia vs. Pakistan at Sydney, and glimmers of hope provided by India’s decision to scrap one dayers and play tests against the visiting South Africans, have been relegated to the new labs of cricket experimentation – what with the referrals, proposals of day night tests, and a pink ball to boot. The real experimental Frankenstein, the T20 format, ironically has become the flagship, and would probably be the dominant format next decade. The demographic watching cricket will be younger and multicultural, and they won’t average more than half an hour of viewing per match, giving them as much time to understand the nuances as a pilot who’s asked to make sense of the plane’s dashboard as the aircraft hurtles towards the ground at 500mph. Skills will be reduced to a battle of superlatives and you can forget about supple wrists and nifty footwork. If the latter is what you prefer, I think they’ll ask you to go see a dance reality show than show up for a match. Let’s face it – cricket was a match invented with nuances and it’s not quite the same without them.

The mutilation that cricket is bracing for over the next decade would be akin to reducing a chess game to 12 pieces each and 36 squares. But wait, there’s hope. Like the great flood did in biblical times, a purging of the mindless commerce can still happen. What will it take? Only the mother of all economic collapses and the grand daddy of depressions to suck the commercial soul out of the game and force it to return to its roots. Will that happen over the next decade? Well, don’t count against it. Meanwhile you’d be advised to check the status of your retirement fund, and be prepared to make an withdrawal if necessary.