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Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me
For all intents and purposes, this famous Emma Lazarus poem that is
graven on the tablet of Statue of Liberty could as well be the anthem
of the new format Twenty20, for its enthusiasm to embrace the poor and
the wretched, reward the weak and the timid, without making any value
judgments with regard to the talents or the capabilities of the team,
and yet providing equal opportunity for everyone to lay claims on the
final prize and the coveted title - World Champions.
What's not to love
about the new format? So what if the game plays out like the climactic
moments of a great action movie, that has dispensed with the story and
the setup and done away with the trivial details like why the villain
should get his comeuppance and the hero, his redemption? It is an
action movie, it is advertised as one, how does it matter what the
"why's", "where's" and "what's" are, as long as there are mushroom
cloud explosions, high speed chases, dazzling graphics and great
special effects. Welcome to the poor man's One Day International. The
new game in town that purportedly squeezes the real juice out of the
game, leaving out all the pulp, skin and other unnecessary ingredients,
and serves the game fresh to the customer, high in sugars and spiked in
adrenaline.
Boundaries, sixers, free hits, measured hits (some made-up
statistic that shows how long and far the ball has been hit into the
stands; the current record stands at 114 meters), slogs, scoops,
sweeps, cuts, pulls, hooks - the game has it all.
Or has it? Without a proper context or a nice narrative to string
together all the above disparate elements that makes cricket such a
vibrant game, the sport is reduced to a series of gags, slapstick, and
mishaps, not to forget, a pre-recorded laugh track, that is mixed in
after the fact. Nobody would have guessed that there would come a day
when the pajama ODI cricket, the prodigal brother of test cricket, be
referred to as traditional. Say what one may of ODI, there still is a
reflection, however faint it is, of the classic version of the game,
with sweet times, gorgeous drives and silken touches. With the
introduction of Twenty20, cricket has found a new clown act - the one
that comes between main items in circus acts, aiming for nothing more
than silly grins and goofy laughs. Send in a bunch with funny hats in
funny clothes, give them no more than 10-15 minutes as the main act's
preparation is underway, instruct the clown to interact with the crowd
- poke at them, squirt them with hidden hoses, hit and run. And when
the main act gets ready, order them to pack up their set and leave the
stage in a hurry, not before receiving the obligatory swift kick in the
behind by one of the main guys, much to the amusement of a roaring
audience.
After all the hoopla dies down and the initial euphoria fades away and
after people become numb to slug-fests, does the new format retain the
same respect and recognition that its big brother held on to ever since
its inception? It is quite evident that cricket survives and thrives
mainly on the never-waning patronage in the subcontinent, and the
immigrant diaspora that make up the core audience abroad. And the
reason why the new format even came into existence in England is to
attract the lost English audience, whose interest in the game has ebbed
with the sagging fortunes of their team in the shorter version of the
game. Though it makes good business sense to market sport in untapped
segments (read US, China and Latin America) by pitting cricket against
their native national sports, in terms of the play time, the excitement
and the fireworks, it remains a fair question as to how much the
regular cricketing world can take this brand of hit out or get out
cricket, the current success of the championship notwithstanding. In an
already crammed schedule that leaves little room for rest, recuperation
and recharge for the players, finding a place for a format that is
purely a spectator fancy with so little in it for the performers, is a
tough proposition. May be, it could be used as a breeding ground for
new ODI players (a la, the minor leagues), where players can hone their
skills, find their form, treat them as warm-ups for grander stages. In
the 50 over version (which was retooled from its predecessor the
60-over version), the game has found the right balance of setup,
structure, drama and heroics, because without the right drama, heroics
is basically reduced to a show-off. And would Miandad's last ball six
or Australia's last ball dramatic tie in a World Cup semi-final, have
left the same kind of impression, if they happened in a Twenty20, where
soon, for sure, drama is going to be reduced to a cliche and last ball
heroics, a passe.
That said, all the teams signed up for the tournament eyes wide open,
knowing fully well the rules and the pitfalls. A regal position could
be reduced to totters in a matter of couple of overs and vice versa.
And the one that emerged on the top at the end of the day need to
congratulate themselves not only for their individual achievements, but
also for their share of good fortune. There is so little room for
error, so little time for recovery and comeback, that margins of
victories get measured in whiskers. Probably after the famous '83 win,
this would come close as a complete victory for the Indian team, in
terms of consistent performances in all departments of the game, helmed
by a no-name and scripted by the average folk. The absence of
unprecedented marketing madness that surrounded the failed campaign at
Carribean, helped the current team a lot, as none, including
themselves, have given them to make it past the first couple of rounds,
leave alone, all the way. If history is any indication, this seems to
be the only way for Indians to keep upsetting apple-carts and well laid
plans of others. Treat each victory as a bonus and savor every moment
as though it is the last. If the obviously glaring fact, that the
format almost nullified most of the advantages that superior teams had,
could be overlooked and the win is treated on its own merit, it is fair
observation that the new face of the Indian team, looks a lot energetic
and agile on the field, thanks to the infusion of the new blood, which
played a large apart in getting the team to where it wanted. Catches
were held, runs were stopped and direct throws rattled the timber with
a clockwork consistency. The contrast is even glaring when comparing
this team to the one fielded in the just concluded tour to England,
where Dravid had had to hide a minimum of 5-6 players every game on the
field. If not for anything else, that is one positive aspect that the
Indian team could glean out of this win - a renewed vigor to attack the
ball, instead of passively attempt to react to it. And before one gets
carried away about India won another World Cup after all these years,
it always helps to remember, given the nature of the format, even
Bangladesh would had had a chance at the title - and that says a lot
about Twenty20.
So what does this all mean - being Twenty20 World Champions? For a lack
of a better word, NOTHING. It still does not change the fact that India
languishes in the longer rung of the ICC ODI table. When the sun comes
back up again tomorrow, and the teams change guard, there are still a
lot of chinks that need looking into and ironing, the chief ones being,
how to marry the experience of the old to the ebullience of the youth,
how to hide the lack of the agility of the old with the quick reflexes
of the young, and importantly, how to drive home the point that bowling
4 overs, batting for a few more, and fielding for a little longer is a
lot different to bowling 20-30 overs, batting 4-5 sessions and fielding
for days together at a time. Every team after a successful World Cup
campaign (Australia in 87, Pakistan and South Africa in 92, Sri Lanka
in 96) raised their standards to launch their game into the next
strata, using the experience and the exposure a good springboard for
bigger and better things. If the Indian team (for that matter, any
team) could take a leaf out of it and apply the new found enthusiasm to
where it really matters and counts, Twenty20 could become the new
drawing board, the new testing grounds for strategies and stress tets,
instead of how it is regarded by the traditionalists as the ultimate
burial ground for class, temperament and skill. And only in that
situation,with Twenty20 feeding into ODIs and ODIs shipping off talent
to test cricket, can all the three formats co-exist peacefully, and
live happily ever after.
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More Views by Srinivas Kanchibhotla
