Change on Demand

As the name of the blog suggests, I’m not much of a cricket person. Well, I used to be till about 5 years back when I was still in college but once college was over and with it all the time in the world, I figured out that watching a sport where mostly nothing happened for the majority of the playing time, all by myself was a tough job. It soon turned out to be an impossible one.

T20 has certainly made things even more complicated. Let’s face it. With so many T20 tournaments being played all over the world these days, cricket in whites doesn’t only seem a thing of distant past but a different era altogether. And there’s absolutely no doubt that this is the most desired format for cricket lovers across the board. But I still fail to understand the T20 mania.

Alright, by now you must be cursing this eternally unhappy being whose only trip in life is to go against the consensus and you are justified in doing so. But can you possibly ignore the fact that such a kind always existed? After all, you cannot ignore us (me actually, plurals are used to gain some sort of an imaginary support from an imaginary section of the society) just because we are the minority!

What I fail to understand is this apparently smooth evolution of the game from 5 days to 20 overs. Popular demand, one would say. In that case, I fail to understand such a demand. Fans usually love a particular sport for what it is, including the duration. Rather, they are so decidedly blind that they never find a fault in something that they are so passionate about. And that makes cricket once again a unique sport as it is the only sport that changed its format and along with it its character to please its fans.

What does a cricket fan want? Does he want the game to remain the same? The way it was when he first fell in love with it? Or does he want her to change to suit his requirements? After all the idea of a 40 minute football match doesn’t appeal to a football fan and there’s no possibility of a World Cup of truncated football matches. Not in the imminent future, not ever.

The reason why cricket has changed is there for everyone to see. India has changed it. And this probably had to happen. Amongst the cricket-playing nations, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe cannot possibly make things happen simply because they don’t have the money. The West Indies is an identity the Caribbean islands go by on the cricket fields. It’s a collection of separate island nations where cricket is dying. Australia, New Zealand, England and South Africa don’t need to make cricket big for two reasons. Firstly, cricket is not the most popular sport in any of these countries and also they don’t have the numbers to support the cause. So it was left to India. To the Indian middle-class whose favourite pastime is watching television. And no other sport can boast of a peaceful cohabitation of viewers and an Indian team.

Thus, cricket changed from 30 overs a session to 20 overs an innings. And it divided the cricket fans into two different camps. The majority camp, the members of which are happy with this change and the unhappy minority lot. This has never been the fate of any other sport.