Test cricket, Cricket Broadcast, Bollywood and T20 Euphoria

Gone are those days when a Zimbabwe versus Bangladesh match attracted a decent viewership in India. Thanks to the advent of innumerable sports channels (from A to Z sports) – there is no dearth of cricket on TV. But these channels have failed in their fundamental purpose to promote cricket and improve viewership. Even the most hyped India-Pakistan series has fallen out of favour of the Indian masses.

The T20 Euphoria and the waning interest in Test Cricket

After the recent victory in the one-off T20 against Australia in Mumbai, India have re-established their supremacy in this shorter version of the game. Naturally, the audience that predominantly comprises the younger population wants more of T20 cricket. But the game’s administrators must be careful not to prescribe an overdose of T20 cricket. If not for the money it generates, it is good for nothing.

Test cricket is the real test of talent and skill. Test cricket alone determines how good a player is to represent his country. Test cricket is not about making quick 20’s and 30’s. It requires tremendous grit, determination and patience. I am not against the conscription of young talent to the Indian team. But the problem is that no one among the youngsters (barring Yuvraj) comes even close to replacing Tendulkar, Ganguly and Dravid at the test level. The guage to select youngsters should not be T20 successes. Some of them will wilt when they don their test cap.

The recently concluded India-Pakistan test series is a telling example of how test cricket has lost its charm. Docile tracks which offer no assistance to the bowlers made the contest between bat and ball look completely uneven. The lack of competition and the five-day duration is not helping improve viewership either. The TRP’s would have dropped to an abysmal low when Pakistan batting resisted with Misbah-ul-Haq in Kolkata and Bangalore. As people start losing interest in Test Cricket, the number of test matches featuring India will reduce and T20 matches will take the centrestage.

Cricket and Bollywood

As a purist, I am not happy one bit with the bollywoodization of cricket. I have always been against associating cricket with bollywood and glamour. One can resort to all that when the game doesn’t find an audience and when it needs desperate promotion. With a billion cricket crazy fans following the team all around the world, there is no need for this prostitution in the name of promotion.

What is the need for Shahrukh Khan to promote ‘Chak De India’ (a hockey based movie) in T20 World cup? If that can be excused in the name of sport, why is someone promoting ‘Saanwariya’ during the India-Australia home series? And what on earth is Akshay Kumar doing by promoting ‘Welcome’ during India’s tour Down-Under? Why mix Cricket and Bollywood? Why can’t one watch cricket and cricket alone without any adulteration?

Cricket Broadcast and Ad breaks

The advertisement breaks make viewing cricket a pain. I completely understand that sponsorship is important to run the game. But then, no sponsor is greater than the game. The importance during a cricket telecast should go for the match, not to the advertisements. Initially, there used to be advertisements after every over and advertisements during drinks/lunch break. Lured by the lucre of money, the broadcasters did away with 4 ball overs by chopping off the last and the first balls of every over by extended ad breaks. They didn’t stop there and came up with another innovation – reduce the aspect ratio of the screen to display ads in between deliveries. In future, all we can see in a television broadcast is the batsman playing a shot. The bowler’s run up and the running between the wickets will be lost to ad-slots.