Test of cricket in full speed

I seek your patience, even indulgence. Hear me out. Life may have sped past me faster than I may have expected but age has not mellowed me, nor has distance from the past made me wiser or more accepting. I still see things for what they mean to me, not for what they are meant to be.

My memory plays tricks with me and sometimes past and present merge to create a future whose consequences I fear to imagine.

Almost two decades have passed since that strange yet enticing night at Bangalore’s Chinnaswami stadium when the cricket ball sped on ground and flew in the air with a frequency never witnessed before in the history of the game. It was the first ever Indian Premier League match where flashily dressed men were literally ravaging the white-leathered ball and letting it fly in all directions of the stadium. An overflowing stadium had seen nothing like this before in a cricket match.

This was a 20-20 over contest between two teams called the Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore. The world’s best cricketers, bought and sold for millions of rupees and dollars, were on show in that full-fledged gladiatorial war that promised to change the very definition of the game upside down.

New Zealander Brendon McCullum hit 13 sixes, 10 fours in a 73-ball 158 to set on fire the imagination of a cacophonous, hysterical crowd at the ground and a cricketing audience worldwide. That fire has only spread and not subsided. Almost all cricket-playing nations now have similar leagues of their own and T20 cricket is seen as the future and sustenance of the sport.

The man, Lalit Modi, who on April 18, 2008, put together the first IPL tournament by whatever means available to him — fair and foul — may be an absconder in the eyes of the law in India, but for the lovers of this format, he is and will remain a visionary who created a brand that has left even Bollywood entertainers jealous and envious. This mix of glamour and glitz played at breakneck speed with the screaming, screeching crowd hammering at your senses has left even its worst critic confused, if not stunned.

I was there on that eventful day at Bangalore inside a stadium awash with floodlights which shone on those myriad colours to make the spectacle a visual delight. The press box was crying for more space and many realised that their traditional tools for recreating the action in the middle with words were woefully inadequate for the cricket they were watching. Not only was their beloved sport being butchered in front of their eyes, it was also being redesigned and refashioned in ways and means that the traditionalists were finding unacceptable. The very DNA of the sport was being trampled upon.

A game that valued patience, a slow build-up leading to the final denouement was now being put on speed skates. Two teams that battled with each other over five days and played over 400 overs were at one another’s throat for a mere three hours and 40 overs. Even the 50-over compromise to lure in the crowds was now being junked for this breathless unfolding of sixes, fours and rattling stumps. Overnight, the staid cricketing world was being challenged and a new order was being established.

In this now nearly two-decade-old revolution, Test cricket, mercifully, is still not dead as many of us feared. It has produced some riveting, breathtaking, close contests, especially in bowling-friendly conditions with batsmen willing to take greater risks. T20 has sped up Test cricket as well, but doubts and fears for its long-term survival remain.

The IPL has made the Indian Board richer and richer by the second and its word is now the law that all nations must follow or fear its wrath. The “meek” have gained money-muscle and strength and are now the new bullies, replacing the White hegemony over the administration of the game. In essence, one bully replacing another bully, making it a game of “if you could throw your weight once, why can’t we now”.

Where does it leave people who savour slow cooking. A dish prepared with care and attention has a flavour and taste that processed food can rarely acquire. A world that scoffs at being patient and wants to smash all impediments that come in the way while driving to its destination can never look around, stand and pause.

I am reminded of Czech-French writer Milan Kundera’s novel ‘Slowness’, where he so clinically yet beautifully describes what speed means for our age. Speed, he says, “is the form of ecstasy the technical revolution has bestowed on man”. In a more philosophical interpretation of comparing slowness with speed, he writes: “The degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting.”

In this world where memory creates the movement of time, past and future are best forgotten when one stays with the present. Another edition of the IPL has just begun. The world’s best cricketers are on display, showcasing their striking abilities. Stay focused. Stay alive. Enjoy. For, tomorrow comes yet never comes.

— The writer is the author of ‘Not Quite Cricket’ and ‘Not Just Cricket’