Pinch Hitter

Twin, Your comments are commercially correct. However I fear that there are detrimental effects of such overwhelming commercialism. We may well begin to see a whole new generation of cricketers who know how to hit the ball hard, play 30 to 40 balls per innings, spinners who spike the ball in rather than let it float and bite, medium pacers who will only learn how to bowl the yorker while forgetting the art of the out-swinging and in-swinging deliveries and worse of all, a whole new generation of viewers who will not be able to appreciate the nuances of 100 over cricket forget a 5 day test match. This will be very sad indeed. Cricket has grown and whilst the game needs new territories, bigger audiences and more popularity, to do this at the cost of the various skills that made the game what it is would be sad to see indeed.

The only thing permanent in this world is change. Things can change faster than any ordinary man's imagination. 150 years ago who would have thought this game of royal snoots would be played and revered by poorest people on earth. And after the game became popular, who would have imagined that players will be that rich as they are today. And as far as quality of cricket is concerned, only through the passage of time it has improved, it is now only that we have Shane Warne, Murlitharan, Kumble who can spin ball like anything. It is not that for the sake of popularity charm of the game is compromised. Yes, it is agreeable that crass commercialization of cricket is not good, taking example of IPL where for sake of popularizing the game or adding razzmatazz to it franchises have to import cheerleaders from NFL, USA. Which somewhat takes attention out of cricket. However, who really do play cricket and are part of national teams or even state or regional team know one thing that they have to get their basics right, everything else matters later, fact is that if you are able to stay on field for long then only you will be to learn more still stands. And then this IPL might affect One dayers, but still, cricketers only know what is best for game. They know how they got into the game. Cricket is a wine, older that is finer it is. Later on such fine thing may be marketed in small bottles. If cricket is all about hit and run then we have baseball. But I must appreciate one good thing IPL has done, it just kicked out stupid and distasteful Saas Bahu serials.

My only fear is that 20:20 might become a little monotonous. Already my interest is fading a little because all there is, is slogging. Like test cricket, saas-bahu serials might also reign. My mother has gone back to her soaps after an initial incline towards the IPL. Similarly, test cricket might get a little more interesting with better run-rates. However, ODIs would suffer because of the length of the game. IPL may be a success in the longer run if the patrons/audiences get loyal towards particular cities. Otherwise it's like eating a brick of vanilla ice-cream: Too much quantity and not a lot of variety in taste.