THE DARK SIDE OF THE COIN…

- Hashim N. Malik

T20 creation led to T20 World Cups, ICL, Stanford hyperbole and before you take a breather IPL – Season 3 is just round the corner. Throw to the mix club-based Champions League, planned Southern/American Premiere Leagues and hosts of other similar interventions springing here, there, everywhere and you’ve got a cricket calendar littered with mercenaric carnivals at the mere cost of bilateral International challenges, reducing them both in value and salability. The true cost, however, is a lot more than what’s presently meeting the naked eye.

Did anyone cared to notice the post IPL performances of cricket-celebs who remained active for the best part of the carnival? International not club performances that is to say whilst representing your country and not a club owned by a chemical processing company.

Let’s analyze,

• Freddie Flintoff, 31, is suddenly too old for Tests.
• Keven Pietersen who rose to fame from previous home Ashes couldn’t gather himself bodily when the most sacred battle made its return to his adopted home.
• Virender Sehwag, living nowadays on the back of his heyday’s footage and doing everything that is not cricket i.e. ICC T20 WC drama is one quick example.
• Jacob Oram never looked so ordinary in every discipline of the game.
• Lasith Malinga, Sri Lanka’s poster boy was left to sign, well posters mainly for the major part of the ongoing Sri Lankan summer due to indifferent form and at times pure exhaustion.
• Zaheer Khan, the Indian bowling spearhead is out and out for a while.

A player either from a established nation i.e. Australia, India, RSA or TGB or a vulnerable one i.e. New Zealand, West Indies etc. can only stretch himself to the extent of his energy and physical capacity. What is not been realized by many is that albeit Twenty20 is a 3 hour roller coaster ride it seeps out as much liveliness and venom out of a player as any other skill-set of the game shall do. Throw to the blend incessant travelling and promotional campaigns and you’ve got a complete recipe for fatigue, exhausted power tanks and productivity bordering on mediocrity.

THIS IS NOT THE WAY CRICKET IS BEEN DONE!

The Big Wigs ala Australia, India, RSA & TGB shall probably survive without much ado. However, the other half of leading Test playing nations, notably West Indies and New Zealand, as discussed in detail below, shall suffer because of reduced value of International games, increased player power and condensed pool of fit and hungry frontrunners.

Caribbean Dilemma

Ah! What to say that is not gloomy about them?

In brief, IPL turned out to be cloud nine for a selected bunch of superstars but is acting as a messenger of death for the credibility and togetherness of Cricket-Caribbean as a whole. The primary bone of contention between WICB and WIPA has its roots in the lure of IPL riches. The players foregathered from a host of Island nations are at this instant succinctly aware that they now have the luxury to go free-lance and do not have to abide by the WICB’s officialdom anymore. Hence, they couldn’t care less if there’s a Test series planned at the Home of Cricket. They’d be indifferent if it clashes and eats into their potential earnings.

Had it not been for the visible fill-in of going free-lance through IPL and domestic events of wealthy cricket playing nations the row between WICB and WIPA would have never stretched this far. Admittedly, the officialdom and high-handedness of WICB is to share the blame but the players will not run scot-free either. One may not confuse their rebellion with that of Packer players from 70’s. The latter fought a cause and made life a lot more financially remunerable for succeeding generations of players and earned the demanded respect on the pretext of sheer brilliance and heroic display in the field where they slaughtered whoever came across. They were a highly professional, disciplined and physically fit unit under the guardianship of a father-figure like skipper Clive Lloyd.

The so-called Protestants of 21^st century are simply mercenaries skipped by a captain who arrives just in time for breakfast before a Test at Lord’s and would not lose sleep if Test cricket dies out. If anything, it shall come as a relief.

To foresee a time where Caribbean Islands are divided into sub-nationalism and are playing every skill-set and caliber that is not International is not a vision of a martian if the current situation goes from worse to the nadir of rottenness.

Sri Lankan Prosperity

Speaking of Lloyd’s men of 70’s I believe the Sri Lankans of today, whilst keeping things constant are the closest in their footsteps. Increasingly becoming one closely knitted unit led by a statesman like skipper Kumara Sangakkara, well versed with today’s realities. They together are not only reaping optimum benefits out of IPL riches (collective refusal to visit UK for a Test series during IPL, making West Indies the makeshift replace’) but are also discharging commanding performance at International level with minimal casualties from the IPL grueling.

The earnings of Sri Lankan’s players shall in turn economically benefit the relatively small Island nation and shall further pump the grass root structure that is already one of the most disciplined in the world.

However, Sri Lanka is one exception!

The gloss of International cricket today, the salability is due to the celeb-power and when a considerable chunk is either not present or performing like ordinary mortals then the void between local and national competitiveness gets condensed.

Kiwi Vulnerability

The demographically disadvantageous Test playing nation has always suffered the drought of Superstars with an odd Hadlee or Crowe or a Bond perhaps appearing every other decade or two. That that thin bunch of celebs found a lucrative voice in shape of IPL and other T20 extravaganzas is contributing more individualistically than collectively.

IPL, the fourth largest world event in terms of value has roped in Vettori, McCullum, Ryder, Taylor & Oram from the Kiwi shores and by the time 1^st Galle Test ended, all but Vettori were either carrying niggles or doing everything in the field except performing. At times their disinterest with the premiere format of the game was so visible that it was ushering through their disposition.

Status Quo

Suddenly it seems like majority who are performing right now either played a little role in IPL – 2 or didn’t played at all. And before you might set the clock alight for the form return of cricket celebs an in-your-face Champions League Club competition is up and running and there you got another string of potential injuries, niggles and exhaustion succeeding as its by product and by the time you’ll look up IPL – 3 is being advertised.

Whose got time and mind for country-to-country encounters? The heart and soul of cricket!

We are stepping into an era with reduced Test careers i.e. Freddie Flintoff or reduced International careers altogether i.e. Andrew ‘Roy’ Symonds - free lance mercenaries’ plying their trade everywhere but at the International stagecoach.

Using T20 to build a wide net of cricket playing nations at competitive level is fine i.e. American Premiere League - but if it is coming at the cost of losing the centuries old fabric of the most sophisticated outdoor game invented by the mankind then strictly in my opinion, as a purist, I will not buy it.

I do not wish to live for the day when to witness a country to country encounter I had to wait for the World Cups.

Pondering…

Hypothetically speaking, would’ve Pakistan able to ooze same vigor and passion and have stood victorious at ICC T20 World Cup 2009 had their stars plied their bodies for as many as fourteen games all over India just before the real international deal?

Think about it!