An Indian perspective

MS-Dhoni-3

The torrent of comment on yesterday’s post revealed that England supporters can’t quite agree, to put it mildly, on where England stand after their hugely emphatic series win. But how do things look from an Indian point of view? Today guest writer Girish Menon muses on the future of Indian tours to England, and whether MS Dhoni’s beleaguered side will have the last laugh.

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As the brickbats from aficionados of test cricket keep piling on the abject Indian cricket team, I was pleasantly amused by Dhoni’s comment at the press conference following the Indian surrender – “don’t be jealous of the IPL”.

It made me ponder whether Dhoni and his teammates will – ultimately – achieve revenge, but in a cold-blooded and circuitous manner.

Australia and England, along with purists and other cricketing conservatives, have for many years been shouting that India don’t care for test cricket. The ICC, however, predicted that the new global power structure would restore the format to its halcyon days. And that this five Test series with India would showcase the new superpowers’ commitment to the ‘soporific’ game. Yet, by conceding both the Oval and Old Trafford Tests within three days, Dhoni’s men have put thrown a spanner in the works.

Given India’s brisk and abject defeats in two consecutive series in England, exactly which county chiefs will have the gumption to bid to host India’s next tests in this country? The ECB have auctioned tests to the highest bidder. County grounds, including the short-changed Oval and Old Trafford, hoped to attract the ‘brown pound’ to boost profits. But after India’s capitulation I doubt if future visits by the Indian team will attract demand from either group of supporters.

The counties may also hope to attract the ‘white pound’ to compensate for the Indian diaspora’s absence. But cricket as a sport is dwindling in popularity as the coffers of most counties will reveal.

Indian advertisers might also be mad at the team’s performances, as the ‘brown eyeballs’ could switch channels to avoid witnessing another shambles on this scale. The money-men might demand the negation of ‘home advantage’ and instead, the curation of pitches which suit Dhoni’s men. You wouldn’t put it past the ECB to come to some form of deal. In this way, match fixing, in a new form – you could call it match-scripting – would sneak in through the back door.

In such a scenario, the BCCI would have ultimately wreaked sweet revenge not only on the lovers of test cricket, but their ICC rivals, and also James Anderson. For what will his impending record as England’s highest wicket taker be worth, if the death of test cricket means the only records of value derive from the IPL?

17 comments

  • In the late 80s I remember reading an article in a newspaper by Silvio Berlusconi. He was not Prime Minister of Italy yet, but owner of AC Milan. In the article he argued that Milan should be in the European cup every year no matter where they finished in the league. I wanted to throw the paper across the room. But I knew it was a bellwether of where football was going. Soon we had the Champions league and Milan would only have to finish 4th to qualify.

    The ICC stitch up is along the same lines. Sporting contests will be created ONLY for money. Merit will play little part. New Zealand, Sri Lanka, West, Indies just don’t cut it in the $ stakes. Every governing body wants to play India because the TV rights deals are enormous. And the ECB has another incentive, namely the domestic Indian community that is a golden goose ready for plucking. Trouble is, the Home grown Indian fans show little interest in being fleeced to the tune of £80 per ticket to watch test cricket.

    The line out of the movie ” if you build it they will come” does not quite stand up. A few years ago ECB organised home test matches for Pakistan, and sat back and waited for the money to pour in. It was built, but they did not come. Some will say it’s down to greed and ludicrous ticket prices. Others will say Test match cricket is dying. I love test match cricket but I am in a minority. You either get cricket, particularly Test matches or you don’t. I have given up trying to explain the wonders of the game to people who dismiss it. Americans don’t get cricket. And as the world becomes more Americanised a 5 day match that can end in a draw is seen as insane. It’s interesting to think what would happen today if the West Indies were still the dominant force they were 30 years ago. Would they get a 5 match series? Or just 2 matches in May?

    In the last 18 months we have seen both New Zealand and Sri Lanka give England a better game than India has In 2 series. But they don’t bring the TV audience. I don’t know what the answer is, but the ridiculous prices and saturation of endless matches is not helping.

    • The line in the Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams is “If you build it, he will come.” The original line, which was indeed “If you build it, they will come” was said by Teddy Roosevelt. “It” was the Panama Canal.

      Sorry to nit-pick, it’s because I can’t argue with any of your points, as they reflect the depressing reality only too well.

      • Thanks Clive for your “nit picking,” and no I don’t mind at all.

        Obviously my movie history knowledge is not quite up to being used for cultural reference points. Thankfully at least it still made some sense.

      • Enough of this, you two, with your erudition – you’re in danger of raising the tone !

        I don’t feel quite as pessimistic as you do about the future of test cricket, but you’ve hit on the nub of a potentially major problem. The Big Three deal, as I understand it, centres around India playing Australia and England in test cricket more often. But if India struggle to sustain spectator (or even player) interest in tests due to weak performances, what then?

  • I’m not sure I get the point of this article? In revenge for being thrashed by England, India will destroy test cricket? You’re amused by this potential concept? Wow that takes being a sore lower to new levels.

    I’m not sure what the take up is in other countries but IPL is shown on ITV 4 in the UK. It’s a little watched free to air channel. This makes me think that it has little appeal in this country otherwise Sky would have added it to their monopoly.

    I say this not to be little but to point out that everyone loses if cricket starts eating itself.

    • 2 points here Benjit
      The IPL on ITV regularly gets higher ratings than England games on Sky.
      The IPL from next season is on Sky, and will be watched only by cricket die hards, it won’t win new fans in England.

      • Cricket really is now an elitist sport for the rich. I can’t believe the legacy of 2005 could be squandered so quickly. I get to watch the odd bit through my mother in law’s sky go subscription!

        The RFU once tried the exclusivity/ money option but thankfully realised that keeping 6n free to air was worth more in the long term than sky’s money.

        I wonder whether BT will try and get a piece of the pie. They are cheaper and show the odd match on their freeview Chanel (for the rugby).

  • Hmm…an interesting insight into the (possible) Indian mindset, but, I suspect, not too far from the truth. The ramifications of the “Big Three” stitch up could already start to become clear. No cricketing nation on Earth would turn up in their droves to watch their national team perform so abjectly, and can only create further disinterest in Test cricket on the sub continent Let’s be honest it wont do the English fans much good either, who the hell’s going to bother to get an overpriced ticket for days 4 and 5 when the Indians come for their next 5 match tour?
    Let’s just remember that during the Ashes series of 2005 C4 were attracting viewing figures of 13.5 million at it’s height, Cricket was being splashed across the back pages as the “new football”….Glorious days!!
    The odious Clarke et al, then threw the the baby and the bathwater out with the ludicrous argument that subscription TV was the only way to save cricket, and vehemently campaigned that home tests should be taken off the protected crown jewels of sporting events free to air.
    Oh I could go on and on ad nauseum about the weaselry of the suits, I just pray that eventually it will all come back to haunt them, as the lack of honesty and transparency surely tells us that they have plenty to hide!!

  • I’m a historian by trade and one of the truisms about history is that writers tend to overstate the importance of the novel and the short-term and understate the importance of the traditional and the long-term. It seems to me there has been some of this going on in the aftermath of the recent series.
    India’s capitulation in the last three Tests has been explained in terms of the IPL ruining techniques and the players not caring about Test cricket. Vic Marks had a dig at “India’s young millionaires” in the Guardian which I found particularly annoying as I usually find him one of the better cricket writers. I’m more inclined to think what happened is more part of certain long-term trends. One is the dominance of home teams in recent Test series. A second is the dynamics of two or three match series compared to a five match series (especially the condensed modern version of the latter). A third is the problem India have with their bowling overseas when they rely heavily on finger spinners as their strike bowlers. India have been successful abroad when they have an experienced quality seamer (Kapil, Srinath, Zaheer) and a wrist spinner (Chandrasekhar, Kumble) who can exploit bounce as well as turn. India have won eight of their last ten home Test series which seems hard to explain if their techniques are ruined or the players don’t care. These wins have been largely the work of Ashwin and Ojha who can take wickets at 25 in home Tests but average over 50 away. Too many low turning pitches and too few with some pace and bounce seem to me as much part of India’s problems as anything else. (This point has been made for decades about Indian cricket – but could modern pitch technology make it more solvable than before?). Much of this applies to England (if one substitutes swing/seam bowlers for finger spinners) when England play away and English players aren’t said to be too rich or not bothered.
    On the health of Test cricket generally, I watched some of the Sri Lanka/Pakistan series and the conclusions of these games seem very well attended. The South Africa/Australia series is sometimes cited as an example of Test cricket in trouble but the final Test in Cape Town was sold out and the previous Test in Port Elizabeth which had some poor crowds was widely followed in the media. I’d love West Indies and Pakistan to return to the powers they were two decades ago but other teams like Sri Lanka and New Zealand are on promising upswings. Perhaps I’m too complacent but Test cricket seems in decent health.

    (I’m holdingahighline on the Guardian – many thanks to IanRSA for the referral on the other thread).

    • Very interesting. Your points about long term trends is well taken. After all, how many timeless Tests are played these days? Tours used to have to go on ships that took weeks to get to their venue. Not much point trying to ram the cricket in quickly. Might as well take your time, and play warm up matches as well. But flying has shrunk the world, and the pace of life goes much faster. Whenever I used to listen to old players talking about tours down under it seemed as if they were almost once in a life time experiences. A chance to see the world on the national teams expense.

      Seeing how much money the Indian cricket board make from TV I can’t understand why they don’t just open the gates for free. A full stadium is worth more to the broadcasters. ECB have not reached that point yet but the empty seats will grow if the prices keep climbing. How much has Lancashire and Surrey made from their tests this year?

      The IPL also offers players who are not to keen to be treated like school kids by national governing bodies a way out. A way to earn a good living without having to answer to endless laptop analysis paralysis,and 87 page diet sheets. Of course you have to be good and dynamic. But the rewards are huge and the the life good.

    • Good to have you here and well done again on your brilliant King Arthur piece.

      “Much of this applies to England (if one substitutes swing/seam bowlers for finger spinners) when England play away and English players aren’t said to be too rich or not bothered”.

      It’s a very good point – in some ways there wasn’t a huge difference between India’s collapse this summer and ours over the winter. At least India won one test and drew another, neither of which we achieved ourselves.

      After the “difficult winter” no one suggested that England just didn’t care about test cricket, or that the supine surrender not only devalued test cricket but endangers its future. The general narrative was simply that we’d lost to a better team.

      I think Girish’s point about pitches is interesting. It must be conceivable that India will say to the ECB that they won’t tour here unless they have a say in pitch preparation. If so, how would the ECB respond?

    • Great comment Simon. Good to see you on TFT. I’m a historian too (when I’m not co-editing this blog). It’s amazing how often we’re right ;-) Cheers, James

  • I’m afraid I don’t buy this conspiracy theory at all. The BCCI agreed to a five-test series in England so that they could perform miserably in it and thus undermine the format? It is trying to sneak “match-scripting” in through the backdoor? Well, for a start, at the time that they agreed to this five-test series, India were the no.1 test side in the world. Isn’t it more likely that they thought this was a good time to expand their ambitions in the test arena by playing a five-test series against England? Second, how does the win at the home of cricket (a quite brilliant win by India, let’s not forget, in conditions that should have suited the home side to a T) fit in with the conspiracy theory? You should always suspect your original theory when you have to invent a new one to explain objections to it.

    One fatal objection is that India capitulated in exactly the same no. of overs — to the very ball — in their two innings at the Oval as England did in their two innings at Perth earlier this year. The obvious conclusion, and here I invoke Occam’s razor, is that neither England nor India currently have a side that can play in overseas conditions.

    • I think Girish is arguing that this will be the consequence, not the cause – ie that India will react to this series, and any future results like this, by stultifying test cricket and trying to shift the balance of power further towards the IPL.

      • Well, we will see. This is how India has always operated. India wins World Cup in ’87 — India starts playing millions of ODIs a year. India wins T20 World Cup in ’07 — India goes mad on T20 and launches IPL. The same thing happened in India’s attitude to test cricket when it became the world’s no.1 team: more overseas tests were immediately organized. I don’t see anything particularly sinister in this at all, it’s trying to give Indian fans what they want. And the point that India’s abject performances in 2011 and 2014 make them less attractive to grounds bidding for the right to host future England v India tests is fairly obvious. If this means that pressure is exerted on the ECB to make the next visit by South Africa a five-test series, so much the better.

  • I do wonder if this series heralds the end of the 5 test series (with the Ashes only surviving due to heritage)
    The Indians were shot after the massive effort they put in at Lords, what they needed was 10 days off. They were back bowling after just 5.
    The sporting body let alone mind can’t cope with that.

  • Was he being sarcastic? Why on earth would anyone be jealous of the IPL? Its like being jealous of WWE wrestling. The bits that aren’t fixed are generally woefully poor.

    I thought this was a series that really showed why 5 test series are important, because it allowed the narrative to emerge and for one team to come out on top.

    It would have been a deeply unsatisfying and inconclusive 1-1 in a 3 test series, as would both the 2005, 2009 and 2011 ashes, of course.

    This was a great example of why we should never go back to 3 test series apart from serious mismatches. The top 8 test teams should all play 5 test series against each other.

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