Watching the IPL auction can be fun in the way that watching a predator chasing prey on television can be fun. You know how it will end (some escape into comfort, others get trapped), but for a while you suspend disbelief.
We’ve had these auctions for so long now that we accept them as part of cricket, part of our lives, like we accept potholes on our roads or rude behaviour by elected officials.
But as millionaires are created overnight with a casual wave of a paddle, it is hard not to imagine Test cricket fading out. As Greg Chappell wrote recently in the Sydney Morning Herald, “Test cricket’s greatest competition is coming from within.”
The most common response to fears of Test cricket disappearing, or publishing houses closing down or cash crops replacing traditional grains in farmlands is: Let the market decide. But that philosophy works mainly at the individual level – the salary of a movie star or a company CEO, for instance – and can be counterproductive otherwise. Markets cannot decide on education, for example, or health care. Or the future of a sport. There has to be a balance.
Advantages for Indian cricket
When the Indian cricket board was trying to sell the concept some 15 years ago, it made much of the many advantages it saw for Indian cricket.
The IPL would involve fans in the franchise cities that would bring them closer to the game was one theory. It would improve international relations on the field of play, went another; it would lead to better player behaviour. That playing alongside the best in the world would improve the game of Indian players was taken for granted.
It wasn’t actually spelt out, but T20 cricket was seen as the future, and the impression was that India had got in early to understand its intricacies.
A decade and a half later, how many of these fond hopes have been realised? Chennai Super Kings apart, I can’t think of a team that has taken its fans seriously enough for them to respond with unconditional love. With Royal Challengers Bangalore in the early years, there was some reaction when Rahul Dravid was let go, but since then fans have seldom reacted to a signing or the possibility of attracting a different set of players.
This year there were 26 players from Karnataka in the auction, but only two were picked by RCB. Most franchises have often gone without a local player at all. Last year, a Telangana politician was angry enough to suggest that Sunrisers Hyderabad should drop ‘Hyderabad’ from its name since there were no players from Hyderabad. Former India captain Mohammad Azharuddin too expressed similar sentiments.
Player relations
Player relations when playing international cricket haven’t improved greatly either, as the on-field fracas in recent series, including during India’s series in England have shown. Perhaps this was being too optimistic.
The IPL has made a difference to Indian players in two ways, however. Playing with the best has allowed them to absorb new skills or polish old ones. The price tags have lifted many from poverty and promised them a future relatively free of financial worry. And it has given the cricket board funds it can pump back into the domestic game while enjoying the kind of influence in world cricket that only money can buy.
That may be a double-edged sword, however. As Chappell goes onto say in his column, “If we continue to populate the ranks of administration with those from the business and the political world, money and power will always be the winner. As former Australian prime minister Paul Keating opined: ‘In the race of life, always back self-interest – at least you know it’s trying.’ ”
Administrators have the responsibility to maintain the balance between what the market demands and what is good for the game, especially its longest format. In the years since 2008, the inaugural year of the tournament, it hasn’t seriously affected India’s standing in Test cricket barring forgettable series in England and Australia a decade back.
Hope for the longer format
So long as India, Australia and England continue to back Test cricket, there is some hope for the longer game. But it may not be viable for most other countries, and international sport cannot survive on three countries however committed these might be. There is the slippery slope of diminishing interest.
Sure, the market decides. But it was still heart-breaking at the auction to see top players missing out, Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne, Eoin Morgan among them. Suresh Raina, a CSK hero too. While celebrating the millionaires, we should also look for a system where such players are not publicly embarrassed.
Perhaps their respective agents should check ahead with franchises to ensure that an offer will be made, thus giving them a chance to withdraw if none is.
