Under the hammer, over the top

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The market is suddenly agog with discussions about the IPL league. On the surface, the IPL dream of making it as big as the English Premier League Football appears a bit unrealistic. There is an air of absurdity around the way the IPL initiative has kicked off. Absurd amounts are being paid to players who have not yet fully proved themselves on a sustained scale of time. Astronomical figures are paid to a foreign player who till yesterday earned every India’s wrath with his on and off the field behaviour and comments. Film stars, liquor barons, real estate giants, apparel kings, petrochemical giants—all have put in their stakes in this. What brand of cricket is it going to be?

The IPL is miles away from the nostalgic saga of willow and cherry. It is willow in a hurry. Score absurd runs, chase impossible targets, earn unbelievable amount of money. The auction hammer at one stroke leveled many old notions of cricket. It felled the fences of country and cricketing world; it demolished the equity of experience. It obliterated the dividing lines of privileged and underprivileged. In a way, it is a celebration of talent; weighing the worth of talent purely on the financial scale. It added a fresh chapter to the story of cricket—that on cricket retail.

Talents are priced on their estimated expiry dates. Ishant Sharma with longer talent shelf life went under a heavier hammer. A Ricky Ponting did not fetch much because of ebbing talent life and possible unavailability. In this best-before-expiry-date valuation system it is good to see some exceptions for the iconic brands of Indian cricket—Sachin, Saurav, Dravid or a Lakshman.

Questions are being raised whether Indian spectators will empathise with foreign players in these teams. When did foreigners became problem of Indians? For a country lacking in national heroes for years we need a small handle to convert somebody else’s glory as that of ours. Thanks to Bollywood and sports shows, a number of foreign players are seen interacting with invited Indian audiences on myriad TV shows. The day Andrew Symonds was hired for Hyderabad, Indian spectators started flashing welcome banners to him during the match at Australia. Mind you, those were shown in the midst of the Bhajji controversy. The ownership of Symonds has shifted without any fuss from Australia to India.

The final question remains whether the format will be popular for a sustainable period. Cricket, as one columnist has written recently, is the biggest leveler of our times. In sheer stature, openness and magnitude, it has created a position in the minds of emerging India what Bollywood had done to the denied middle-class of the 60s and 70s. Whoever you are, whatever is your origin, if you have talent you can really make it big here. Glory and wealth from cricket is the most believable dream. All young Indians know that and their parents believe it too.

One can hazard a guess how the shape of cricket retail will unfold. Cricket talent factories will mushroom in next few years, offering independent careers for various requirements of the cricket retail industry, a pan India business chain in sports gear, technology, and entertainment. India will showcase new talent shows in the arena of the stadium. Match analysis will be less. Those serious discussions will probably be reserved for the bigger format of the game.

As spectators we are no longer living in real time, nor do we enjoy our cricket with our own eyes. Our camera vision is tampered with slow motion shutter speed where everything looks frictionless and nimble.The diving body of the catcher cradling a nicked delivery moving at 100 miles per hour from the leading edge of the bat makes everything look staged and scripted. We will need more of the close ups of furrowed frowns on the perspiring foreheads of players to lend reality to the spectacle. We need to get used to action foreplay along with action replay to comprehend the cricketing reality. Most probably the peripheral drama around cricket will get prominence.

The action drama will be complemented by the family dramas. I won’t be surprised if international gurus of cricket land up in silk and saffron to bless the new talents and their last minute advice are reinforced with tilak and tikas. Players would only enter the playing arena after proud mommies have done their artis and tied the talismanic charms. There will be more hugs and puffs among the winners and the losers—both on and off the field. The camera will have a hell of a job to capture it all. Sniko-Meters, Hawk Eyes will have other duties to bring emotional angles to the ankho dekha haal and beam it across the cricketing world. By the time this column is printed the ICL spectacle will be in full bloom. Things will only be bigger in emotion and excitement.

Only one western character of the game will in all probability lose his role and relevance in this family carnival—Mr Streaker!