Why the BCCI understands us best

Yes, you read the headline right. I actually believe that the decision to have a curtailed South Africa tour is one of the brightest ideas the BCCI has ever had.

No, I am not related to N Srinivasan in any way. In fact, I am not even a Sachin Tendulkar fan. I don’t know if this brutally frank acknowledgement of mine would hinder the readership rates of this article but I would still carry on.

To understand this point more clearly, it is necessary to go back quite some time in history. When Lala Amarnath hit India’s first Test match century, the women present in the stadium rushed out and showered the young batsman with their jewellery. This spectacular event though had a much larger socio-political significance – it was almost akin to a “middle finger in your face” to the oppressors who had dominated us for two centuries.

It was understandable then that cricket took a backseat for the next three decades as a new India built its systems of governance to run the country. There were the occasional blips on the radar – the series victories in New Zealand, England and West Indies in the 60s and 70s – but despite the occasions being momentous, the celebrations were far from historic. This was an age before social media – the keenest of the keen stayed up nights to listen to the matches on radio while the others read about the results in the papers the next day by when the sweet taste of victory had been diluted by the thoughts of a long day at work.

So when India turned up for the World Cup in England in 1983, nobody had any expectations. The last two World Cups had produced a cumulative total of one victory – against a minnow East Africa. The second of these campaigns had also included a humiliating defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka who were still some way off from becoming a Test playing nation. The only good thing about this World Cup was that satellite television had now become popular across the country and we could actually watch India losing instead of just having to hear about it.

There was a minor change in the script – India actually started to win. From no-hopers, Kapil’s Devils had wound their way up to the World Cup final and ended up on top of the West Indian Goliath’s head. The World Cup victory 28 years later would count as one amongst many of new India’s successes, but the 1983 win was the biggest international success for India in any walk of life at that point of time.

The eastern parts of the country, which so far had been more prone to football, had suddenly been converted. Corporate interest in the sport too had received a major boost and, as soon as four years later, Dhirubhai Ambani’s Reliance would become the second entity to sponsor the World Cup after Prudential.

But barring the World Cup and the World Championship of ’85, successes were few and far between for the Indian team. There was the occasional high like the 2-0 series victory in England, but it was too occasional to leave a strong after-taste. However, a major paradigm shift was on its way.

Till the ’83 World Cup, cricket was a prominent source of interest in England, Australia, New Zealand and West Indies. All of these countries were dominant in at least one other sport – for England and West Indies it was football, for Australia and New Zealand it was rugby – which meant that cricket’s share of eyeballs was divided.

In contrast, the newly born subcontinent had barely any sporting preferences to speak of. A major success in one sport therefore created a chain reaction which led to the proliferation of the game of cricket in this part of the world.

Things moved fast – Sharjah was seen as an ideal venue to cash in on the large Indian and Pakistani expatriate population which led to its getting a chance to host the first Asia Cup. Around the same time Sri Lanka got Test match status, making the game much more relevant in a war-torn country seeking for some succour.

By the 90s, the seat of power had started to shift. It was India who facilitated many of the happenings of this period – from South Africa’s re-entry to Bangladesh’s Test match status. The other countries too had begun to accept India’s rise to superpower status in the cricketing world – a trip to and fro by the Indian team would not just mean a higher number of gate receipts but also millions of dollars of revenue through television advertisements.

And then there was Sachin Tendulkar. At the height of his powers, Tendulkar was like Alexander – conquering every land he set his foot on. Even as India struggled and fumbled with a weak team, Brand Tendulkar chugged on. Wherever he went, people would turn up in hordes to watch him play – often to watch only him play.

But this was the 90s and we were still getting used to success. Liberalization had just happened, double digit growth was still some years away and we were happy with our middle class aspirations. Until Y2K burst upon us.

It seemed as if a new India had entered a new millennium. A burgeoning population which had up to that point threatened to be our demise now seemed to be our ticket to bigger things. With its varied demographics and the second largest population in the world, India provided a market too irresistible for multi-national companies. They came in hordes to set up shop and, as a result, the Indian economy surged upwards.

Our bourgeois background suddenly deserted us; we now had access to everything which our fellow human beings in other civilized societies had. This “we want the best” attitude spilled over to our love of cricket – suddenly we were no longer happy with the odd victory over Pakistan; we wanted to be number one.

Haroon Lorgat

In a sense we were fortunate as this was exactly the time we had the likes of Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag, Zaheer, Kumble and Harbhajan. Most of these players had transitioned from failure to success – this Indian side now knew how to win.

We, the tax paying public, were overjoyed. But our inner demons were still lurking around. We had risen too high; a fall from this height would be shattering.

And like all other inevitabilities, this too happened. A shocking loss to the same Bangladesh which the BCCI had nurtured over the years meant that India crashed out of the 2007 World Cup even before they got a chance to enter the proper league stage. A billion hearts were broken; India had travelled full circle from 1983 to 2007.

At this time a visionary (co-incidentally called Subhash Chandra) came up with something called the Indian Cricket League. Based on Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket format, the idea was simple – use the newest format of the game (Twenty20) to get international superstars down to India to play along with domestic cricketers around the country.

This was the first challenge the BCCI had received in a long time – its immediate response was to ban everyone associated with the league from having anything to do with anything in Indian cricket. Twenty20 was a format not too favoured by the BCCI – in the run-up to the 2007 World T20, they had played only one T20. In fact, so strong was their contempt for the format that they sent a side of rank greenhorns to compete in what was an international trophy.

And like their predecessors in 1983, these no-hopers came back home with the trophy. The BCCI suddenly saw a business opportunity like no other – a Twenty20 championship to ride on the recent success which would have the best players of the world playing in India. And creating strong domestic loyalties would mean that not everybody would go back home unhappy – in other words, an ideal situation for the BCCI.

And thus the IPL was born. Cashing in on the Indian public’s sentiments for short term satisfaction, this tournament brazenly proclaimed itself as “entertainment ka baap”. Cricket was now just a medium to deliver entertainment and nothing more than that.

With its bottomless cash reserves, the IPL lured the best players of the world – and hence their boards too. These players had now become mercenaries who put their boards to the swords provided by the BCCI. Players are the heart and soul of any cricket team and the boards had no option but to meekly resign to the fact that they had fallen far behind in the race.

In the last five years, there hasn’t been a single ICC decision which the BCCI hasn’t controlled – be it its stand on the DRS to its toying around with the Future Tours Programme to it asking for early morning matches in West Indies during the 2010 World T20 so that the Indian cricket fans could watch it at a convenient time. The IPL has been the iron maiden through which the BCCI has been twisting the arms of the ICC over and over again – indeed, it is hard to believe how a domestic tournament could have its pride of place in an international calendar.

The latest of these transgressions is the Haroon Lorgat case – one which ideally we should have no business of poking into. The Boxing Day and New Year Tests in Durban and Cape Town are part of South Africa’s cricket history; by altering the schedule, India has passed this piece of history through the paper shredder.

So whose fault is it at the end of the day? Ours. We always want to see India win. If they aren’t, then we are okay with Mumbai Indians winning. But when Mumbai Indians doesn’t play, our thoughts come back to India again.

Let’s face it – we aren’t man enough to accept India’s defeat. Throughout the 80s, as Allan Border’s team rebuilt on the debris that was Australian cricket, they had the support of millions of Fosters-guzzling Aussie fans. The South African fans bristle on their team being labelled as “chokers”. Even the West Indian fans have gloriously accepted their team’s decadence with a lot of honour and they turn up for each game with calypso and pina colada even if to see their team lose. The odd success like last year’s World T20 is celebrated as if it is the last day on earth.

And what do we do? We use social media to castigate a losing team which is in transition and which a couple of months back had delivered us the biggest prize in the game of cricket. We tear a bowler to shreds who has lost us a match on a flat batsman’s deck but who had won us an international trophy with 10 wickets in the tournament and two crucial death overs’ strikes only a few months back. Poking good natured fun is a different issue; our barbs are seeped with the poison of malice.

It is good for us then that Sachin Tendulkar plays his 200th Test match on a steam-rolled road of a pitch at home against the eighth best side in the world. If he signs off with a century, we will not be deprived of a momentary high which would probably not be available if he had to face Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel on a Durban pitch. And even otherwise, the mental agony that might have been inflicted on us by seeing the likes of Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina foundering against the short ball has been reduced to a length of two Test matches and three ODIs.

We have to thank the BCCI’s far-sightedness for that.