The two faces of cricket

On Wednesday, May 17th, on a windy evening, here in Dhaka I spent my time watching two cricket matches on TV.

One of the matches of course involved Bangladesh. They were taking on New Zealand in the tri nation series in Ireland. The other was an IPL fixture between SRH and KKR.

And as I watched the cricket sitting on my sofa, I just couldn’t but notice the contrast between the atmosphere and the overall cricket in the two matches.

Over the last decade or so IPL has brought massive changes in the cricketing world. It’s not just a tournament; it’s an entertainment event. Yet, my interest in IPL can at best be described as ‘casual’.

Often, I watch IPL matches until midnight, showing great interest at the time; yet by 10 am in the next morning, I forget who was the MOM.

I find the actions amusing, but not intense enough. For me there is just too much acting (by the players, umpires, the cheerleaders, the fans and the superfans), lot of things seem pre organised. Everything around the ground seems commercialised.

Yet, I do have my attraction towards the IPL, but for a different reason. For me IPL is a grand stage to look at some of the talents who without IPL would have ranked as the ‘forgotten heroes’.

Let’s take the case of Parthiv Patel first. About a decade and a half ago, he seemed all set to become the next superstar in Indian cricket.

Yet, the arrival of MS Dhoni ended his chances of international recognition, pushing him in to the brink of oblivion. Yet, thanks to his performances for MI in IPL, he at least gets his time in the spotlight.

Back in the 1960s and the 70s, three Indian spinners, Kumar (Tamil Nadu), Geol (Delhi) and Shivalkar (Bombay) were very familiar names in Indian domestic arena.

Kumar was a leg spinner, the other two were slow left armers. Year after year, the trio took plenty of wickets on the slow turning pitches; yet due to the presence of the great spin quartet of India at the time, they got little exposure to the international front.

Amit Mishra and Piyush Chawla of the current era can consider themselves to be lucky. While they have little success in the international cricket, at least they can show their talents at IPL.

Hanumant Singh, a dazzling right hand batsman, whom the great Prasanna described as one of the three best players of spin bowling in India in his time, scored freely for Rajasthan for more than a decade.

Under his leadership, Rajasthan became a strong force in India’s domestic cricket. Yet he remained mostly away from international spotlight, as his chances with the national team came and went in the mid sixties.

Ashok Malhotra came to the forefront during the 1981-82 season. Yet this exciting middle order batsman remained a fringe player for India for four to five years before losing his place. His final chance came during the tour down under in 1985-86.

He didn’t get any chance in the three match Test series, as all the top order Indian batsmen took advantage of the inexperienced Aussie bowling attack. He made a few cameo appearances in ODIs, and then went in to oblivion, despite scoring freely for both Haryana and West Bengal in the following years.

We can broaden our horizon and look at some Pakistani players as well. Zahid Fazal, a precocious batting talent was pushed in to the Pak national team in the autumn of 1990 against WI, in a bid to rival Sachin’s inclusion in the Indian team.

In his first series, Fazal was battered by relentless short pitch bowling by the WI pace quartet (Marshall, Bishop, Ambrose, Walsh). He never fully recovered from this nightmare, and the world of cricket saw very little of his enormous talents.

Md. Wasim, scored a century in his Test debut against New Zealand in 1996. Tall and lanky, and extremely wristy, just like Md. Azharuddin, he earned rich plaudits for his techniques against short pitch bowling during the 1996-97 tour to Australia. But he failed to perform consistently, as the selectors tried him in different batting positions.

If there were IPL or PPL at the time, the likes of Fazal, Wasim, Hasan Raja and many others would have enjoyed greater spotlight.

The current generation of players is luckier. Even if they fail to shine for their national teams; IPl and other similar events provide them the chance to get recognised.

And of course there are players, who perhaps have little chance of playing in international arena at all.

IPL gives them their chances: their days. On his day, Vohra can steal the limelight from Glenn Maxwell. Manoj Tiwary can become more important for his team’s causes than MS Dhoni.

This is this aspect of IPL that attracts me more. One of the problems of international cricket is that, with too few teams in the arena, the same players dominate again and again. IPL, at least, offers a good range of variations.

Now, we can discuss the event in Dublin. Already it has drawn some criticism from the media here in Dhaka, for inadequacies of different facilities.

None of the glamour associated with IPL, or other mega events of world cricket, seems to be present there. The application of technology appears minimal.

Yet, ironically, it is the inadequacy and the inefficiency that has made the event interesting to me. To me it seems refreshing, to see cricket played in a natural way amidst natural surroundings.

In direct contrast to the packed Wankhede or the Eden Garden, we see the Dublin matches drawing sparse crowd. Yet, the crowd seems to enjoy themselves properly sitting mostly in the grass.

There is plenty of green around (as expected in an Irish event). Even the pitches seem a bit too green.

Whenever, someone hit a six, we see the young kids rushing to get the ball first. I enjoy this far more than the dancing by the superfans of IPL; the superfans try to entertain without showing any natural charm.

Overall, I liked the leisurely atmosphere surrounding the Dublin match. Even the cricket played doesn’t seem too serious.

For both New Zealand and Bangladesh this is a warm up event before the real thing (the Champions Trophy).

Some of the Bangladesh players look a bit rusty; perhaps a bit short of international cricket lately. Some of the Kiwi players, on the other hand, know that they got this chance only because some of their regulars are away in IPL.

Ireland, of course is still an associate member. So, the cricket played isn’t brilliant. But, I still like it.

I like it in the way people enjoy their children’s school function. There, the acting in the drama can at best be described as semi-professional. There is lack of synchronising in the group dancing. The anchor, extremely nervous, makes frequent mistakes.

Yet, people enjoy the environment; they actually like the shortcomings of the performers. Similarly, I like the environment in Ireland. After all the superficial things associated with IPL, the tri nation event at Dublin comes as a welcome change to me.

So IPL and Ireland cricket provides me the opportunity see the two entirely different faces of the royal game. IPL shows the modern game; frantic, exciting, glamorous, but somehow lacking any natural charm; Dublin, poorly organised; yet cricket played in natural sprit; in natural circumstances.

For all the glamour associated with modern cricket, there are people (like me), who still like to see cricket as an English village game; close to nature, close to summer. For such people, the event in Ireland has come as a welcome relief.