If there?s a debate on whether India is the new nerve centre of world cricket, chances are the verdict will be unanimous or near unanimous in favour of the motion. This belief has been reinforced by the players? suggestion that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is way too powerful and even the International Cricket Council (ICC) is powerless in trying to control the growing financial clout of the BCCI.

That the BCCI can stop Sri Lankan players from leaving for an all important series of England and force them to play IPL for ten more days or allow Chris Gayle to play the IPL when he is clearly out of favour with the West Indies board only demonstrates India?s new found status as world cricket?s arbiter. At the same time, however, the English continue to score an all important point over India?they continue to fill their Test match grounds, something India has been unable to do over the last few years despite hosting the best teams in world cricket in Australia and South Africa.

Trying to get tickets for the forthcoming India-England test matches is an interesting experience. Had it been in India, staging associations would inevitably have to sell day tickets for interested spectators. While having the full knowledge that there?s a difference in cricket cultures in India and the UK, and that Indians do everything at the last minute, it is surely a matter of great satisfaction to find out that tickets for all the Test matches for the India-England series, starting July 21 at Lords, have been sold out.

Lords? tickets, needless to say, are at a premium. There was a ballot for non- members that ended on the night of December 13, 2010, and the lottery was done soon after. The lucky few were notified by early January, more than 200 days in advance of the game. Trentbridge, too, displayed an all-sold board by April and only tickets for day four in one of the lesser stands were available. Edgbaston and Oval went the Lords route and have long been sold out.

While we celebrate the IPL in India and make hay about how it brings in the big bucks, it is time to conjecture how we can take on the English or the Australians in nurturing a Test match watching culture of our own. Even the first day of the Sri Lanka-England Test at Lords saw a sizeable crowd soak in the action in what was a fantastic day in London. Unless we are able to solve this problem of Test match grounds, which are near empty, we can never aspire to be the real home of cricket.

Is it then just a difference in cricket cultures in India and the UK that explains this problem? Or is it that we, in India, except in certain venues, have never learnt to appreciate Test match cricket in totality?

A caveat is in order here. Appreciating a Test match in this day and age of slam-bang cricket is indeed an ordeal. Long spells of play with hardly a run scored isn?t the type of cricket the new generation has learnt to appreciate. That such spells are the real test of a cricketer, have their own intensity, own drama and own charm are thoughts alien to the new age Indian cricket viewer growing up on the IPL.

This is not an attempt to denigrate the IPL or the T-20 format of the game. Rather, it is a suggestion that in order to be acknowledged the true home of world cricket, India needs a composite cricket-watching culture of her own. Just like there is a clientele for Bollywood music alongside that of Indian classical music, in cricket, too, we need different bands of supporters for the various forms of the game.

For, just like the primal shriek from Yuvraj Singh with fists clenched will forever be etched in the memory of the Indian cricket fan after India beat Australia at the World Cup quarter final at Ahmedabad, so also the Rahul Dravid jump with fists clenched at Adelaide will forever remain a picture-postcard moment in India?s cricket history. We can?t compare these moments and it is perhaps not proper to do so as well. Just suffice to say we need viewers to appreciate both and only then will the shift in nerve centre to India will be complete.

The writer is a sports historian