Twenty of this, 20 of the other

The opening ceremony of the Indian Premier League (IPL)was a grand spectacle as expected, but cricket aficionados will be somewhat concerned about the match that followed the two-hour razzmatazz.

It was so one-sided as to be disappointing, and therein is the crux: for Twenty20 cricket to be sustainable in the long-term the product has to be good, else no amount of hype and hoopla is good enough.

I mean, there is an undeniable thrill to watching Shah Rukh Khan or Preity Zinta cheer, chant and do a jig every now and then to support their respective teams and a ‘sighting’ of big-ticket industrialists like Mukesh Ambani or Vijay Mallya in the stands also has tremendous value.

Celebrities form an important constituent of the entertainment package in sport. But the novelty of that will wear out quickly and can’t be a substitute for the game itself. Instant gratification is the basis of 20-20 cricket, and the flip side to this is instant dismay if the match peters out into a lop-sided affair. When the match becomes one-sided, T-20 can become tedious.  

I write this before the second match has begun, and without prejudice to either the IPL or ICL of which I witnessed many matches over the past few weeks. This game — indeed any modern sport — is not just about money, but eyeballs. And as we all know, if there are no eyeballs, the money becomes vapour faster than water in a desert summer.

To garner and retain eyeballs, the competitive quotient has to be very high.
That said, I am not cynical about T-20 cricket. Conceptually it is the biggest thing that has happened in this sport. Cricket was chugging along at a pace sluggish enough to suggest that it might not last beyond the middle of the 21st century.

Suddenly arrives T-20 with its high energy, frenetic pace, and suddenly a moribund sport gets the kiss of life.

The appeal of T-20 cricket cuts across age groups and breaks gender barriers. It is easy to comprehend and doesn’t consume too much time which is why it is believed —and not without substance — that this format will engage many of the countries which have  either ignored, or remained oblivious to cricket.

It can also be exhilaratingly unpredictable, leading to massive swings in fortunes and emotions, and leaves even the best names and the biggest reputations, exposed. For instance, who would have thought that a young Indian team would win the inaugural World Championship against all odds? Or that Hyderabad Heroes will overcome a very strong Lahore  Badshahs in the ICL final?

The game itself is simplistic, and lays greater emphasis on alertness, strength and raw energy rather than ‘character’, the cherished virtue of old-fashioned cricket. In five-day, even one-day cricket, the character or mental make-up of a player has more scope to show through; in T-20, it is the ability to hold your nerve for a short period of time that matters. In time, perhaps, this will define the ‘character’ of players.

But I believe that over-emphasising the slam-bang aspect of batsmanship ignores the two other aspects which perhaps play a greater role in determining the outcome of a T-20 match — bowling and fielding.

While batting actually gets reduced to a one-dimensional affair, bowlers have to double-guess and outthink batsmen constantly, and fielders who perform out of their skins to save runs and take catches provide match-winning value, even if unsung.

The long-term implications of T-20 will be the biggest on batting technique as conventionally understood: especially for those brought up in the old school, it would be daunting. The first thing a young batsman is taught is how to play the forward defensive shot; in the T-20 universe this would be considered anathema. Enough to cause an existential dilemma in a batsman like Rahul Dravid, for instance.

But that now comes with the turf. Why, after watching and writing on Test cricket for 30 years, I feel like one of the dancing girls myself.

Email: ayaz@dnaindia.net