IPL 6: Keep calm and have faith in cricket

I’ve learnt in the process of growing up that the world is not divided into black and white. There are shades of grey distributed all around in our lives. The same holds true whether we’re applying the rule in our day-to-day lives or things that affect it. Cricket is one of those things. And cheating in cricket is another, bigger contributing factor.

We love cricket because we love the sport, the techniques, art, science, and even the literature related to it. There’s a respectability associated with loving absolutely everything connected with the game and that’s because it’s a fair, competitive sport. Take away from cricket its gentleman-ship, and it loses its charm, every last ounce of it. Therefore, cheating in cricket calls for a serious retrospection – by the players, fans and even administrators.

There’s also a need for faith to be restored amongst all the parties stated above, for cricket can’t function in the absence of even one of them. BCCI is not a giant corporation ready to sell the world away for its enjoyment till Doomsday comes calling! They work for the betterment of cricket too, and they are concerned about the game and how it has been progressing in the world. But they need to stop taking fans for granted.

Irrespective of the fact that I think too much cricket is bad cricket, I feel there’s passion among the players to be involved in such a show, which exemplifies madness related to cricket in its truest form. The fans want to watch good cricket. Close matches, which are due to a poor display of cricketing talent, aren’t even close to those which become memorable due to a Chris Gayle, David Miller or even Dale Steyn taking apart the other team.

Good cricket is respected, always.

After being in the game for many years, players understand that; they clearly do since the level of smartness displayed on the field has increased manifold over the seasons, not just in IPL, but also in international cricket. Therefore, it’ll be utterly stupid to think that only players are intelligent and the administrators are corrupt. It’s almost the same as thinking that all the politicians in our country take bribes and can do nothing good.

One bad fish spoils the whole pond is the idiom which needs to be taken very seriously in this scenario.

There are good people in various departments – in BCCI, as well as Indian government. The most important fact here is that those individuals are not given enough importance to bring their contribution to the fore. There are people ready to accept that the case of Sreesanth, Chandila and Chavan will act as the final nail in the coffin for IPL. But it won’t.

IPL and its parent BCCI are easy targets now. But this is no Hollywood movie, and they are no giant corporations destroying the game. They have found an outstanding idea to make the game truly global, something which hasn’t been the case in its history of five centuries (only maybe during the days when the sun never set in the British empire), and they need support from all quarters to make it happen.

Cricket is all about entertainment – driven by skills rather than the lack of it – which sometime make for close finishes, but not satisfactory viewing. But over the years, not many people would refute the fact that football has eaten into the fan market. Cricket’s biggest worry in this case is not whether Test cricket is being lapped up by enough audience or not, but the fact that to make a quick buck, the quality of the sport being produced is sub-par, worse than what some of the best Associate teams are able to show.

Raj Kundra, owner of Rajasthan Royals, said:

He may have meant it to distance the team he owns the major share of as far as possible from the controversy, but there’s truth in those words.

Cricket is an individual sport being played in the shroud of a team game. Individuals are the key for good cricket and individuals need to be targeted for bettering the game of cricket.

Since so much is dependent on an individual in a sport, the ‘bad’ components of the game would obviously be attracted towards them. Therefore, there’s an urgent need to focus on individuals rather than point fingers towards ‘big corporations’. Players are responsible for match-fixing/spot-fixing, and not necessarily the cricket boards or corporates organising the events.

These are individuals whose moral values have a price and who are always looking for ways to make a quick buck, trying to make good money before their weaknesses come standing in way of their aspirations.

Such people abound in our society and it’s not practical to prevent them from coming into the game. But education is something that’ll help rid us of this shortcoming. There should be a certain procedure adopted by our administrators to bring fans to the game. When trust is broken, it’s not enough to just say sorry, there has to be actual work behind the scenes to gain back that credence.

If there is something wrong with the game, it has to be changed starting at an individual level. There’s no quick-fix solution to the issue. Blaming IPL, BCCI or even the ICC won’t solve the issue and bring the attention back to the beauty of the game.

Fickle fans would’ve already felt that there’s nothing really beautiful in the Praveen Kumar delivery which swung in sharp to take the bails off Unmukt Chand‘s stumps yesterday, and may even compare it to a scripted wrestling match in terms of the effect created; but the game is getting better over the years and it’s patience which is the need of the hour.

There are bad apples in the basket, but the game of cricket is made beautiful by good individuals and they urgently need to step up now and give their best. Let the world think it’s all scripted. The joy and the pain of playing the sport still remains with the players and its maddest of fans. Let them enjoy it.

When asked the repeated question is IPL fixed my answer is always IPL teams CAN’T be fixed but individual players who lack integrity can.

— Raj Kundra (@TheRajKundra) May 16, 2013