Americanization of Cricket

Born and raised in India, I am a big fan of the sport of Cricket, not unlike how most Americans swear by Baseball. As of my colleagues told me earlier, Baseball, despite its boring pace, is the favorite of most Americans because it's a part of their childhood. Same goes with cricket in India. My fondest memories are of me playing in the streets with stumps drawn on the wall, playing with tennis balls, and occassionally dipping my hands into the open gutters to get the ball that went out of bounds.

When I came to America first, the first thing that struck me the most was the complete commercialization and capitalism of the sports industry. Almost all sports are governed by money than by talent (some would argue that the money is given for the talent, but I don't agree fully with that). 

As a cricket fan, I always knew who to root for - India at an international level and Tamilnadu at a national level. Loyalty was more to the geography than an individual. While I admired exceptional sportsmen from other countries, my loyalty was always unwavering and didn't have to, since the players stuck to the geography. In contast, I did not see any strong reason for loyalty in sports in USA, because players keep shifting between teams, except possibly at the college level. If I root for NJ for example in one season, I find that half the players are dispersed in other teams in the next season because they got better lucrative contracts.

As with all other sectors, it looks like the wave of captialism and American values has hit the Indian sports industry, and like in most cases, they have taken the worst of the wave than the best. Yes, I am talking about the T20 matches and the IPL league. You have everything there now - half-time shows, cheerleaders, and not to forget - million-dollar contracts. BCCI - the cricket board in India is swimming in cash and they want more. Their interest seems to be in getting more money than improving the sport or building talent within the country. 

I am not saying that the new format is bad - it's short, and has lots of thrills. But my gripe is more about the complete disregard they have for the county cricket - the Ranji trophy matches - which aims to build regional teams that would eventually make it into the national team. Why can't they both co-exist together? Why can't the Ranji trophy be made as interesting as the T20 matches or as prestigious as the British county cricket? Is it because they cannot make money by building new talent? Possibly, but I don't think it's a valid reason. You can bring the same T20 format into country cricket (which is roughly what the IPL format is like, but not quite). 

The short-term gains seems to be clouding the judgement of long-term stability, much like the Indian polity. And no one seems to be looking back into history and see how that attitude has fared till now.