The Rise of Commercialism, the Death of Test Cricket
There was a time when the sound of the ball hitting the bat was music to the ears. There was a time when every single stroke of the batsman was like a sweet symphony, the bowlers were like skilled musicians and the game of cricket
was joy itself. All that has changed. The advent of capitalism and consumerism has brought with them the avarice for more profit. Vulgar amounts of money were thrown in, the game itself puffed up with makeup, some rouge on the cheek, some mascara on the eyes,
scantily clad, then pushed out on the street, to turn cricket into a cheap buy and nothing more.
The sad part about this entire ordeal was that the very caretakers of the game itself perpetrated this crime in the hope that they would make the game more attractive to those who knew little about it. Unperturbed with how they
were in fact making a mockery of a sport and a legacy, they stripped it down and exposed it, spicing it up like an amateur chef overdoing his dish, sprinkling some cheap glitter on it and calling it T20 cricket.
It was like a sleazy, gaudy street walker.
All those who whine about match fixing should be given the thrashing of their life, their short memory spans not allowing them to think about the crimes they have committed against the sport itself, claiming to be the caretakers
of it. And what is the reality behind such a ‘caretaker’, the most powerful man in the cricketing world? Is he some infallible messiah who has had an impeccable track record? The chairman of the ICC is known in his own country as Mr Teflon and no, it is not
meant to be flattering.
Having agricultural roots himself, Mr Pawar is known to be a land worshipper and this is not necessarily restricted to agricultural land. He has had a long and controversial association with “matters pertaining to real estate.”
An ordinary Indian citizen writes, “History will show that he was one of the most corrupt Maratha Leader.” To have this man as the chairman of the ICC and then having the gall to claim that match fixing is a folly that threatens
the world of cricket? Such unabashed hypocrisy is distasteful not to mention the pot calling the kettle black. Where is that minimal level of moral integrity that was almost cognizant to the game of cricket itself? Where has it gone?
The founders of Twenty20 cricket might be arguing that it is getting popular by the day, but at the same time it is effectively killing the essence of a truly great game. What difference is there left between T20 cricket and baseball.
The role of the bowler has been systematically shredded, he is no longer important. Twenty20 cricket is simply a marriage of convenience to satisfy the testosterone levels of greedy corporations and individuals.
A cricket writer aptly writes in an article, “The real threat to the game of bat and ball comes from the bastardization of the sport. In no other major sport will you find three formats competing with one another for eyeballs and
share of the market pie.”
The self proclaimed messiah’s of the cricket world hold a very myopic view to think that stripping cricket of its modesty to make it compete against each other with three conflicting formats is contributing to its growth. What
it is in fact doing is ensuring that the sport is turned into a corporate w***e fest. If it were indeed growing, then the world of cricket would not have been limited to just 10 teams at a time when scientists have dispatched their satellites to mars.
Cricket has evolved over the years and now in many countries it has become a multi-billion dollar industry, however at what cost might we ask? At the cost of seeing the longer format of the game dying out? At the cost of quality
of players deteriorating consistently? At the cost of losing all romanticism associated with the game?
(The illustartion accompanying the article is property of the artists)
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