The state of cricket today
The day I gave up any hope of playing cricket for India was the day Ricky Thomas Ponting gave India's bowlers a thumping of their lifetime (you really don’t need the date do you?). The day I started watching cricket again was when I heard Brian Charles Lara was up on auction in the 2011 Indian Premier League (IPL). Sadly, though, no one bought him: a T20 genius ahead of his time.
I cried the night MS Dhoni hit that six to usher India to world dominance in 2011. My dad kept shouting "We have won!" "We have won!" I never thought India would win a world cup in my lifetime. I come from the city of Calcutta: home to Pankaj Roy, Sourav Chandidas Ganguly, Deep Dasgupta, and Manoj Tiwary.
My mother has seen Allan Border lift the Prudential Cup in my backyard at the Eden Gardens; nowadays, I frantically search all Youtube videos for her face! India won the World Cup in 1983 when my father was graduating college. Then they won in 2011 when I was accepted by the same college.
I am blessed by the cricket gods to see Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar score a 100 against a rebuilding West Indies team in 2003. I swear he raised his bat towards our stand. I have seen Mitch Johnson bowling to my beloved Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunil Narine winning us matches after matches. I have run the same streets run by Pankaj Roy trying to imagine what he would feel before going out to open batting for India.
When the Knight Riders were in the dumps, I stood by them. Now, they are two-time IPL champions and one-time Champions League T20 (CLT20) runner-up. It has been a great run. Some athletes have six legs, six hands and wings like Jonty Rhodes. Some have nine lives (read: Team Australia/England 1999). Others like Sir Richard Hadlee get there by torturing their way to perfection.
Some of my favorite games aren't those that you win by a mile, but rather those that you fight out of death. A lot like Pakistan’s version of Maradona – Imran Khan – and his famous 1992 team, fighting like "cornered tigers", or the 1999 World Cup semi-finals; I bet Lance Klusener and Allan Donald still replay those last 2 balls behind their eyelids.
In the 2003 World Cup, I was so full of hope. A young boy one day wanting to play for his country, I went for the my school team tryouts, and my very first two balls clean bowled my coach. He didn't take me. That with India's loss to Punter was enough for me to never touch a cricket ball ever again.
A few hard years later, when the Knight Riders reached the semis of the IPL 2014, I felt that urgency to be there. A few connections later, me and my friends made our way to the Gardens. I can still remember the first time I walked into the ground as a blearily eyed 13-year-old. This was no different. Things may have changed, cricket may be money and fame and all that, but the sound of willow on leather will never change.
Cricket Today
In preparation for this article, I had to shed a few tears and finish those half drunk beers. The state of cricket today, a lead up to the ICC World Cup 2015 and why we need more Test matches.
Today, cricket is a global game, just behind the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics. We have global fan following, even Barack Obama once worked on his straight drive with Brian Lara. Thankfully, we are more or less past the stage of match fixing and wrong decisions. One man's curse is another's blessing. The T20 generation is here.
Can't play for country for whatever reason? No swear mate; the IPL needs another all-rounder. In the meanwhile, my agent sweats it out in obscure Yelahanka fighting for playing room on the Caribbean T20 tour, the Australian T20 tour, the Pakistani T20 tour....the list is endless.
This is great for the sport; big hitters like Chris Gayle, Glenn Maxwell among others have attracted a new fan following. Every time you see a big guy like Ashish Nehra take wickets, you secretly smile to yourself. Kids growing up now have no idea how awesome he and Zaheer Khan were in the early 2000s.
Kudos to the IPL, kids graduating with sport management degrees can come home now, work and make a pretty darn good living. Stadiums are used regularly, which again means good things: more crowds. The advertisements, T20 nights are back! I work out best when the gym TV flashes Chennai Super Kings playing Mumbai Indians.
Then there's cricket's version of the Champion's League: Champions League T20. So, you can see the Lahore Lions take on Brisbane's best. Or the old flames, the Super Kings and the Knight Riders.
Is T20 really what we want?
Therein lies the problem. We're producing a generation of pinch hitters and reckless bowling. 40 overs: not even half of a standard ODI. Forget the established names, I'm worried about the future of cricket in another 10 years.
Remember when India won the 2007 T20 World Cup and comically couldn't bat out 50 overs a little later? Young up and coming stars need to be exposed to more 3, 4-and 5-day competitions before they let the T20 race take over their lives.
Take the case of Exhibit A: A young up and coming wicketkeeper batsman from Bengal, Ranji star, but the team India call never comes. The lucrative contract from Kings XI Punjab knocks on the door. What would you do?
A few seasons into winning both the IPL and CLT20, that call finally comes, representing India on a tour of Bangladesh and England. If that kid isn't schooled on Test cricket and the now so called 50-50 format, what's he going to do?
If you play perfect blackjack, the house has only a 1-percent advantage. But, in Vegas, they build great big casinos on that 1 percent. Right now, Test cricket is the casino and T20 cricket is the guy sliding up to the table with a fistful of 50s.
2015 World Cup predictions
My last topic of discussion for this essay is the predictions for the 2015 Cricket World Cup. Australia, you have been warned. This is your Cup to lose. Don't forget that Boof is the man responsible for Australia seeing the light of the '99 Final.
The man to hit the winning runs. He's on the other side of the chair now, the all-important coaching role. Great things can be seen in this current Australia side. Can they go on with it?
My dirty feelings, hunch, whatever you wish to call it says the last four teams standing will be South Africa (my favorite to win), England (enough rubbish, bring back KP already), Australia (sentimentally), and either New Zealand or India. India's chances depend a lot on their last tour at home against the West Indies, while New Zealand and South Africa are the two best teams to have never won the Cup.
As Ritchie Benaud once said, “The hallmark of a great captain is the ability to win the toss, at the right time.”