Inclusive cricket

The gentleman's game now a vehicle for upward mobility

Much criticism is heaped on cricket these days for the commercialism that has permeated the game. This commercialism appears to have reached its apogee in the Indian Premier League (IPL), the four-year-old tournament that is driven by private sector money and which purists love to hate. There may be some truth in the criticism, but no one can deny that the “privatisation” of cricket has proved more effectively inclusive than almost any welfare scheme of the United Progressive Alliance government or, for that matter, all the populism of a Jayalalithaa and a Mayawati. Today, thanks to the private corporate money that flows into the sport, it is entirely possible for a young man anywhere in India and whatever his background to consider making a living from playing cricket; the successful ones can even aspire to lifestyles as luxurious as any corporate professional, if not more.

 

The trickle-down effect of this new-found affluence is even more significant in deepening the pool for talent. As journalist K R Guruprasad points out in his book Going Places: India’s Small Town Cricket Heroes, some of the best talent is being drawn from small-town India —places like Meerut, Azamgarh, Kakur and so on. Dhoni, from Ranchi, is the beacon of that emerging trend but so are Sreesanth (Ernakulum), Sehwag (Najafgarh), Ashok Dinda (Naichanpur) and Munaf Patel (Ikhar). As Guruprasad writes, the IPL model has spawned thousands of clones all over India that have, in turn, become far more effective nurturing grounds for talent than the state association-sponsored domestic tournaments simply because they are better bankrolled.

Till private money started flowing into the sport, cricket may have been India’s leading passion but the nature of the market was so monopsonistic (in this case the state was the only buyer) that the prospects of making a living from it were remote. Sportsmen were poorly paid so the talent was drawn either from those who had the independent means (like M A K Pataudi) or those who held nominal jobs in public sector enterprises — the State Bank of India, the Railways and the Port Trusts being popular choices, though a couple of private groups also lent a helping hand.

This situation meant that although the game was played in its many entertaining variations everywhere in India, urban India dominated the national game. Mumbai, with its long history of community-based Quadrangular Tournaments, was the major producer of national talent — Gavaskar, Vengsarkar, Tendulkar — but Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Chandigarh were other sources. The social milieu from which these cricketers came was also roughly similar — middle-class boys with a modicum of English (Solkar, the groundsman’s son, was enough of an exception to attract attention.) Contrast this with the team today when boys whose fathers run small businesses (Harbhajan Singh) or come from poor farming families (Munaf Patel and Ashok Dinda) or less affluent backgrounds (the Pathan brothers) in India’s myriad small towns can reasonably vie for selection.

The media has often (and erroneously) compared the IPL players’ salaries with those of the opulent English Premier League (EPL), the football tournament on which it is modelled. The more correct comparison is a sociological one: EPL players are exclusively from the working class and many of them are millionaires by the time they are 25 years old. Indeed, they are rich enough to have created a defiant, bling culture of their own. It may not appeal to everyone, but as a sign of inclusiveness it is certainly worth celebrating.