CRICKET GOING GREEN Cricket once known as the gentlemen’s game, has gone through serious transitions over the years. The game which was played with no time restrictions once has been encapsulated into a 20 over format in the 21st century.
Invented by the British the game of cricket has never been able to capture the imagination of the whole world, other than mostly the countries under the British rule or the regions where the British Empire has left its legacy. The concept of cricket for a layman is not easy to understand, as when one tries to explain the rules and regulations of the game to someone who is entirely unfamiliar with the sport, the interest of the listener is most probably bound to be lost in the first few minutes.
And the fact that a match played over a period of 5 whole days has a great chance of ending in a draw does not help the cause. But the amount of changes implemented in the game in the last 20 years specially has changed the game upside down. Some of which were to a degree necessary while some cricket could have done without.
Kerry Pecker a well known Businessman and Owner of Channel nine news Network in Australia can be credited with planting the seed of modern cricket, well more than 2 decades ago. Pecker when denied the rights to broadcast International cricket decided to construct his own league, and for the first time in cricket started the row of club over country, at that time cricketers were not blessed as much by the commercial glitz and glamour and pockets full of Dollars. And Kerry Pecker offered international cricketers handsome sums of Money to leave their national team and to play in his private league, and many came running when Pecker extended the offer.
Bringing money into the game was not his only acclaim; Kerry Pecker was also the first one to introduce day-night cricket and the concept of playing with colored kits and a white ball.
A trend which was later used in the World Series in Australia and in 1992 for the first time in a world cup, the white ball and colored kits gave a whole new identity to cricket, and the 92 world cup became a milestone tournament in the evolution of cricket.
One day cricket which was earlier a 60 over affair was reduced to 50 overs long ago, but there was still this need to attract more audiences to the game, and to encourage people to go and watch the domestic cricket, in 2003 which gave birth to the idea of the most encapsulated form of cricket known as twenty-twenty.
The trend caught on quick in English county cricket, and audiences packed the stands in anticipation of quick runs, and ball crossing the boundary line in quick successions.
The trend caught on and countries like Pakistan, Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka started twenty-twenty domestic tournaments, which understandably got a great response everywhere.
And after 9 world cups in 50 over format, in 2007 crickets governing body ICC decided to inaugurate a t-20 world cup, which India won by beating Pakistan in a thrilling final and was all over the
cricket news.
After which came the so called Rebel league known as Indian Cricket league, headed by Indian great Kapil Dev, ICL introduced the idea of international players playing alongside domestic players from India, a league which was understandably very lucrative, which then gave birth to the Indian Premier league, the biggest cricket bonanza ever seen, based on almost the same platform. But it has experienced criticism over the cricket news and forums for being destructive for pure sense of cricket game. IPL has captured the imagination of the whole world, already into its 3rd season, Indian Premier league has become the dream destination of every cricketer given the amount of money and commercialism involved, sadly the t-20 version has become the priority of a number of players, prime example of which is England’s start all rounder Andrew Flintoff who retired from test cricket just to prolong his ODI and mostly t-2 career, as one can make almost the same amount of money playing an IPL match for 4 hours which a player makes in a 5 day test match. But on the flip side this version of cricket has given a new lease of life firstly to players who have just retired from cricket such as Gilchrist and Shane Warne still applying their trade at that level, but to those who were one match wonders and never made it back into the team, or to those who never even once had the chance to make it big and were restricted to the domestic game. With the amount of money a domestic cricketer can make a successful career without even making it into the national side. And number players are also being selected in the national sides based on their performances in events like the IPL, a prime of example of that would be Australian opener Shaun Marsh who made it into the Australian side after scoring heaps of runs the first edition of the IPL.
The amount of money and commercialism has certainly increased the amount of cricket played throughout the year, yes it has brought a whole new audience to cricket, it brings in money for players broadcasters,
cricket news channels and many others, but the fear of burnout, early retirements and cricket overkill still exists. There is a whole other debate of t-20 killing off test cricket, but the purists still remain, and one thing is for sure if test and one day cricket could co-exist for so long, this new breed of cricket can also join the race and not pose a threat of extinction to its ancestors.