IPL hullabaloo casts spectre over huge loss

Memonics

Nero was so obsessed by his own skills as a musician that he fiddled while Rome burned; the Indian cricket establishment appears so fascinated by its profit-making ability that the fate of the national team doesn’t seem to count for much.

In the hullabaloo of the much-touted billion-dollar IPL, the auction of players, the selling of teams, brands and what not, what has perhaps escaped the attention of the mandarins in the BCCI is the need to promote sustained excellence to make Team India the best in the world.

Indeed, the big story emerging from the Board after the three-day defeat at Motera was about some kind of a ban on media houses from taking pictures of the IPL matches because the rights for these had been sold! Talk of misplaced priorities.
I have nothing against monetization of a product — to use the jargon currently widely prevalent in the BCCI — but this must be counter-balanced by the need to make the national team the best in the world. If that purpose is neglected, it makes neither cricketing nor (in the long run) economic sense. Indeed, the pursuit of money then becomes self-defeating.

After the horrors of the World Cup last year, the resurrection of Indian cricket — in the socio-psychological as well as financial aspects — came because of a series of extraordinary performances beginning with the victory in the T20 World Championship mid-last year and climaxing with the win over Australia in the one-day triangular earlier this year.

A Test series win over Pakistan at home and a Test series that should have been won on pure cricket logic against Australia in their own den added to the belief that Indian cricket had found new zest and purpose. Indeed, the change in attitude and performance was so marked that it appeared Australia was about to be dislodged as the world’s best team.
 
The progress of the current series against South Africa suggests that such hope may have been just that: Hope. Take away Viru Sehwag’s amazing triple hundred at Chennai, and India would have been under extreme duress even on a dead-as-a-dodo pitch. At Motera, where conditions admittedly helped fast bowlers, it must be remembered that South Africa scored almost 500. All said and done, it was a shocking rout, no less.

There is obviously the danger of overreacting to defeat, and paranoia in any case does not help. Any team can have an off-day, so being bowled out for a paltry 76 could be seen as an aberration. But it is in the nature and trend of play that has been witnessed so far which should worry the Indian captain, selectors and the Board.

True, Sachin Tendulkar was missed at Motera. But his absence can only be a factor in the defeat, not the excuse. For almost this entire match — and in a big spell at Chennai too — the much-touted batting has looked shell-shocked against the South African pacemen. The Indian bowlers, on the other hand, have struggled to get wickets at a decent strike rate. Suddenly, what had seemed would be a cakewalk is turning out to be a nightmare for Indian cricket.

There is only one way to break up a bad dream. Wake up.