League of the unknowns

But for the first time, the eyes of the world will be on India. Will it have as much of an impact as Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket did? Will it be bigger? Thirty years from now, will Friday the 18th of April be seen as a defining moment in the history of the game? A lot of people are watching from the sidelines, waiting to see what happens before they make their first move.

In England the players will be seeing how much they have lost, and thereby strengthen their case for playing with the world’s best. There is no secret about which side they are on and there is fear that somebody in England will seize the moment and begin a breakaway league. It could work and it may not. It may not because there isn’t the same amount of money and passion going around, but who is to stop a world league of Twenty20 led by the Indian Cricket League? England is the crucible at the moment and the administration has to act quickly. Either they set up their own league, or alter the season to accommodate the IPL, or risk losing players elsewhere. I believe we are not too far from a re-alignment of traditional cricket in England; certainly at least as far as a Twenty20 tournament is concerned.

The International Cricket Council will be looking to see if the IPL merits a window in the calendar. The players think so and certainly the new chief executive thinks so too. But you need to look beyond the first year. Currently we are looking at six weeks. If the IPL becomes what the franchise owners hope it will be, there will need to be more teams, more matches, longer seasons. That will be inevitable if this is a big hit in the first year because franchises will be looking for returns on investment and a longer season might benefit them.

So how long does the window become? Eight weeks? Push the English season back by a month? End the Australian season early? What about Tests in the West Indies and Sri Lanka? What about the ten-year calendar?

The franchise holders will sit down in the first week of June and see if it has been worth it. Their assessment of success will be based on the number of people who come in through the gates, the number of people who watch and the possibility of merchandising and countering the instantly available fakes in the market. They will also want a few more guarantees with respect to scheduling and, therefore, with the choice of players. Before they sit down for their next round of spending, they will have to know what they are buying. Do they have a player for the entire season? Will he suddenly go away to play a domestic tournament? Franchisees are not in this for mindless spending and they will want a clearer picture next time.

The players will be hoping that it can extend careers or, in some cases, offer choices. Would they want to play day in, day out county cricket for four months in front of fewer spectators than at a dinner table, if they get the same amount of money for playing six weeks? Will older players find a three-hour game easier to handle or will they be found out by younger players with little respect for age and records? Will the IPL in fact hasten the exit of middle-aged players?

Will cricket remain the staple attraction or will it have to cede way to this curious amalgam of cricket and entertainment (as if either needed a prop!). So far, the only “entertainment” came from the cheerleaders who cheered with equal enthusiasm, or monotony, for either side. Now, there are movie stars, lead singers, dancers from the United States… Is this the way ahead? And what will this do to the traditional, die-hard cricket watcher? My feeling is that the sandwich has got to be full of the real thing but that is something that we will learn as we go along.

And I think the impact will be felt on one-day cricket in a few months as fielding standards improve, definitions of good totals change and exotic deliveries make their appearance. Cricket will not be the same but that does not necessarily mean it will be the worse for it.

So you see, it isn’t just a cricket match that begins on Friday evening. But, and wonderfully so, almost everything I have talked about here depends on how that cricket match and others like it go!

The writer is a cricket commentator express@expressindia.com