Cricket in whites, at night

World Series Cricket Sydney 1979, Australia v West Indies, Max Walker, Greg Chappell, David Hookes, Dennis Lillee and others

1977, it was. Kerry Packer had done the trick by shaking the game’s core. Though bucks were embraced as the conduit towards change among players brought up with a boisterous brusqueness, it was a change and a half that a flamboyant Packer had introduced. A change that became a revelation in the chapels of cricketing history. A change that cast a luminous spell of lasting greatness despite cooping up cataclysmic allegations by the dozen. In verity, it indeed was a change for the better, armed with a concept which would propel the game towards economic glory and drive the fans to an eternal frenzy. World Series Cricket eventually melted away in a jiffy, but little did the purists predict that the game would be indebted to the extravaganza Down Under for leaving a gargantuan impact: a mark which transformed an unknown practice into common place folklore.

Yes, night cricket and coloured clothing became cricket’s new dimension: a version many had only dreamt of. Stamped down with certitude and driven with gumption to the masses who embraced it with glee, the chimera of playing under lights became a reality. Night cricket metamorphosed the game into a business, and the sport and its bandwagon of nuances could be leveraged with assured returns became provident: a fact that magnetized the sport to attract investors worldwide, thereby strengthening its financial muscle manifold. More importantly, it was all about the fans. People flocked in with an urge to stay and with a desire to soak in a new found excitement. The game indeed was a rejuvenated one in an arena oozing energy under lights and vibrancy with an ensemble of colours. They say cricket is a funny old game which surprises, shocks, disappoints and delights. It was a bolt that Packer had pulled out of the blue, surprising many by the success which the concept experienced, thereby endearing a loved sport to its biggest stakeholder: the fan.

30 years after a volcano by the name of World Series Cricket changed the texture of limited overs format, cricket in the planet is at the cross roads once again. In a world where seconds come at a premium – life strides ahead at pace – fast-track entertainment in compressed capsules has become the cult. T20 leagues have scripted overnight success sagas, transforming a little known ‘gully cricketer’ into a millionaire. Big hitters hog in the limelight over unblemished thespians of technical defiance. Test match cricket in particular is the cynosure of attention for alarmingly excruciating reasons, thereby attracting the bosses’ eyeballs and the connoisseurs’ agony.

But the fact that Test cricket remains the ultimate alibi of unabridged cricketing excellence makes it the final frontier for any cricketer to parry in pursuit of glory in the realm of sport. It is a tradition, a culture which needs to be nurtured back to health from the fangs of endangerment than letting it rot to extinction. Empty grounds are evident symptoms of a game that is terminally ill. Grounds staging Test matches represent eerie scenes of a nightmare unfolding with alarming clarity: that of the stands being devoid of fans.

The primary reason for such a plight of the game’s flagship format may be attributed to the general apathy towards a phenomenon which lumbers forward at a snail’s pace. Let’s face it: four hundred and fifty gruelling overs panned over five gruesome days can be excruciating for ardent lovers of action at supersonic speeds. Extrapolating the global success and appeal which a high profile series like the Ashes witnesses to the perennial well-being of the sport is downright foolish.

There isn’t any hiding away from the fact that the layman is as important a part of the cricket family as the purist. Test cricket in particular and cricket in general needs both the commoner and the connoisseur: a force which is mighty in duality would be not even half as strong when in single. The former brings in the style which makes cricket the exciting rambunctious extravaganza it is; the latter preserves the culture in its purest form, knows the rich tradition of the sport, and loves the game for its most subtle of intricacies and nuances.

The world is swayed by the corporate boom. The youth is engulfed by the bottomless ocean of education. Each day witnesses a dawn to dusk rat race en route to economic prosperity. The office going culture has compounded the financial returns of the middle class cricket fan as much as it has crippled Test cricket for an eternity. That a Test match pans over at least three working days does alienate the commoner from the Test cricket cauldron. In such cases, providing free tickets to school/college going students is really not the way out, though it remains a viable option to increase footfalls and attract eyeballs.

The growth of the visual media does the trick to a fair extent as far as keeping the investors in the game is concerned. It is as pathetic a conundrum as there can be that even the recently concluded South Africa-Australia series, which stood out for sheer quality of action, didn’t witness full houses. True, the television ratings for the series were high with a lot of eyeballs remaining glued to the TV sets, but empty grounds and stranded stands depict the fate of a game which is in peril. Test match cricket needs to reinvent, reorganise and remodel its offering to witness global applause to its appreciated aesthetic appeal.

Pink ball

Test cricket needs a change in its carapace and not in its core. Let the core of the classical format retain its innate beauty, which indeed is as mesmerising as ever; only that it needs to be properly driven to the masses in a form that garners global appreciation. A concept on which people have endlessly debated and discussed and experts have run out on their expertise by penning down pages, it is high time Test cricket let itself be bit by the nocturnal bug. Night Tests sound enchanting, riveting and promising to offer an evening of sheer enthusiasm. It looks strong enough an idea to be tried out at the international level, if not to be completely embraced.

Persisting with abstemiousness will not do the trick, as Test cricket rightfully deserves its share of flaunt and flair and the audacity presently reserved for its younger and sleek cousins. The nightly atmosphere certainly enhances the glamour quotient under the glare of lights. If nothing else, night Tests should be viewed as a completely different conduit to the existing ones to woo viewers into the Test arena and to television sets.

To become a global reality, the idea of night Test matches need to parry thorough an ensemble of excruciating hurdles. Cricketing conditions remain the pessimists’ countenance. Dew remains day-night games’ biggest nemesis. The colour of the ball under lights is termed as the biggest block in the realm of visibility. But as battle scarred warriors, cricket and cricketers need to confront adversities as challenges for a bigger cause, as amidst great difficulty lies the game’s greatest opportunity.

It is a fact baffling beyond belief that a nerve racking script in the form of an encounter in whites unfolds itself when the fans are working away within the portals of plush offices. Letting the drama unfold at a time convenient to the fans is the stepping stone towards filling up empty stands, with madmen cheering with an unabridged and uninhibited wildness. Test cricket needs to renounce some of its traditional sheen to welcome its more glamorous nocturnal cousin with a long term view to enhance its longevity. Flawless playing conditions remains, and in all probability will remain, a fantasy keeping in mind its dependence on unbiased technology, natural vagaries and perfect human decisions. Compromising a bit on the same seems a fair trade-off for encrypting an epic atmosphere for the audience.

A lot of talk has been doing the rounds in cricketing circles about pink balls being a possible option in night Test matches. It indeed is heartening to see Cricket Australia adopting a proactive stance towards staging Tests after dusk falls. Sheffield matches have been played under lights at Melbourne and Adelaide to overwhelming responses from the audience. But, for the idea to become a movement and the change into a rampant revolution, boards like BCCI armed with the might of money need to shun pusillanimity and show the penchant to improvise. First-class games at night won’t be that bad a start.

The cloak of apathy donned by cricket bosses resembles an attitude of intransigence towards a novel yet enterprising pedagogy of ostentation. Cricket today is not what it was. Things have changed beyond recognition. As much as the gentleman’s game it ever was, cricket has metamorphosed into a global business hub enamouring enormous chunks of money. And it is the ever enlarging buck pie that provides the game the much desired fuel to keep it up and running. The time when the game of cricket was just a sport involving a few good men is history. The stadium of today has become a stage of dreams for performers to orchestrate their art before stands packed to the hilt with the game’s biggest aficionados.

Cricket is as much of an experience as a game, if not more. An experience which is rightly expected to be an enthralling and not a dour one. Experiences are conjured on exotic ambiences and thrived on an electrifying atmosphere. Cricket has become an empire where the consumer is the ultimate emperor. A consumer centred approach towards marketing the game’s highest pinnacle of excellence – Test cricket – is the need of the hour.

We need to magnetise the game’s core to attract young and old alike, communicating excellent value by putting up a quality wholesome experience on offer. Night Test matches are certainly worth giving a go, if not worthy enough of being embraced as way of cricketing life. But a try against the tide in pursuit of safe waters may be the tonic a format which is in dire straits needs at present. It is an investment worth making, keeping in mind the halcyon days in the game’s enriching history.