There was a time when the entire country would practically gather around a television to watch a unique episode of power, creativity, grit and determination unfold. This is not a reference to a reality show but the game of cricket – as we knew it back then. No one doubts whether the popularity of cricket has gone down but the quality has. You need to look at the game now, and look at what the game was five to ten years back. While the media remains hung on the supposed T-20 craze, we don’t realize that we have stopped connecting with the game as we used to.
Our media is strange in the fact that they create icons and then destroy them the minute they are caught on the wrong foot. As I write this, there seems to be a weird story circulating around the newspapers that Sachin, by claiming to be an Indian first had actually taken a dig at the Thackeray’s in Maharashtra. What a load of drivel! Our press is so hungry for news and incidents that it tends to sensationalize everything around us.
Going back to my point, how many of us remember the style and elegance of batsmen back then? How many of us remember the fury of fast bowlers back then and the mastery of spin bowlers as they engaged between a competition of bat and ball for 50 overs or 5 days? Now it has all boiled down to your 2 minutes of fame where even hitting absolutely random shots for six will get you the headlines on the next day. Cricket could be heading towards baseball, a huge commercial venture and players vying for stardom, the next sponsorship deal, or the next television appearance, whatever happened to the basics of keeping your head steady and moving your foot forward. I have no doubt that fitness levels have increased manifold as to what it was a few years back but everyone today will agree that the game has lost its quality, I also agree that the game needs to evolve and improve, but not at the cost of making our batsmen big-hitters and our bowlers trained to bowl 2-3 tight overs and leave. Straight drives have given way to tennis shots, cover drives have given way to scoop shots and as a result we are taking the game into a new direction. Coaches need to be telling players to innovate, but not at the cost of losing your wicket to unnecessary shots.
A few days back Sachin hit a marvelous innings at Hyderabad and believe me, on that evening, cricket came home to us again. Just like the good old days, we were glued to our television sets, debated, cheered, scowled and finally after the match was lost we spent days analyzing the game, talking about the special innings from the maestro and solving the teams problems, never mind the result.
Today our past generation of class cricketers is on the verge of retirement and will definitely not play the next World Cup. So the question we need to ask ourselves is, who picks up the baton from them, or are we going to be presented with a bunch of big hitters who can bowl a few and a bunch of fast bowlers who can hit a few. In a few years, cricket will not be a pleasure to watch anymore. So lets hope there will be another Brian Lara, Mark Waugh, Sourav Ganguly, Wasim Akram, Alan Donald, Kapil Dev etc. the people who were class acts on their own. We need new players and those players who can raise the game and bring cricket back into our homes again, the way it used to be.