Where is the game headed?

	In India, the demands of advertisers have been put ahead of the needs of the viewers © AFP Enlarge
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Another year slips by, this time accompanied by a decade; another reference point gets created. For that is all that a date in a dynamic world really is; just a little dhaba, a little coffee shop on the way for us to rest and reflect in. It is not a natural inflection point, for change does not wait for a date in a calendar. But reflect we must and ponder over what lies ahead because these are tumultuous times. The last two years have challenged existing thought like few other years in the game's history have. They set the agenda for the year, the decade, ahead.

There are many questions we seek answers to, but inevitably every question is but an offshoot of one: What format will dominate? And inevitably, therefore, how will the carrier of the format, the medium, react? Twenty-overs cricket, and our acceptance or rejection of it, will shape the decade ahead. Like nuclear power, it can either save our world or destroy it, change it forever. And like nuclear power, it needs to be harnessed for the development of the game.

Already 20-over cricket is emerging as the saviour of the game. In India, the money it is bringing in is leading to better stadiums. In course of time it should lead to better spectator amenities. It is taking the game into the smaller towns and empowering young players hungry for opportunity. Never before have as many people been able to make a living playing cricket. Soon Australia and South Africa too will start to benefit as revenues from the Champions League allow them to develop cricket better and compete with other sports. In the next 10 years, as leagues evolve around the world, this model could get replicated everywhere; maybe not on the scale that India's population has allowed for, but it will allow more players to enter the system and give them a standard of living that might otherwise have been denied to them. They may not earn millions but they will do better than they might if there had been no customer-friendly cricket league.

But 20-over cricket cannot be allowed to become the monster that devours everything else. It must tingle the senses, and that can only come with occasional denial. It must, like the seductress, present itself occasionally but not surrender, and that is why I believe this decade will lead to the creation of windows for Test-match cricket. I am not very sure if a Test-championship model will eventually be sustainable, since inevitably commerce will demand that the best play against the best often. A one-sided Twenty20 game gets over in three hours, but a one-sided Test match can be difficult to market. And so I foresee fewer countries playing Test cricket, but in doing so, actually making the format stronger. It could well lead to the sustenance of a format that is so dear to all of us.

There is a fear that the decade ahead could lead to the rise of the freelance cricketer. Currently, in spite of what cricketers in Australia say, that fear seems unfounded. Only two are treading that path at the moment, and to be honest, neither Andrew Flintoff or Andrew Symonds had an option. The ultimate glory, of playing for the country, will not lose its lustre and only those that are denied that honour will turn freelance. To that extent, national teams will not lose key players. The could-have-beens or those slightly past it will turn freelance but I do not see thoroughbreds going that way in the prime of their career.

What it could lead to, though, is a bit of confusion over team-mates and rivals, especially if you play for your franchise teams more often than you play for the national side. In the eyes of a fan, is Didier Drogba more Frank Lampard's team-mate than Wayne Rooney is?

The second half of the decade gone by showed India using its economic might to have things its own way. Going ahead, this translates into opportunity but also into responsibility. India has to evolve from being the money leader to becoming the thought and performance leader, and play a more mature role as a custodian of the game. It is a serious challenge, as state associations are increasingly run by people who have neither respect for nor interest in the game. They are drawn by attention and power and therefore must leave the crucial aspects of the game to followers, not all of whom will keep cricket uppermost. Who looks after pitches, for example? Who cares about the dwindling stocks of spinners? At the centre, the BCCI is actually enjoying some of its better years, but it needs to worry about the satellite bodies, and that will be Indian cricket's greatest challenge in the years ahead.

As the decade ended, the carrier of the game, its financial backbone, appeared in urgent need of a debate. India's power comes from the money television brings in, but networks are increasingly stretched by the amount they have to pay for rights. Inevitably, then, they must bow to commercial demands, and that means advertisers must get their due. But it also means that the game is sighted increasingly rarely. Viewers must now fight their way through swarms of advertisements to watch the game they so love, and as someone who broadcasts on the game for a living, I know Indian viewers often miss out on some of the nicest moments. And so we need to achieve this equilibrium between the stakeholders: the networks, which have improved the quality of coverage greatly; the advertisers, who fund everybody; and the viewer, who must see more cricket. The search for this equilibrium could well define where cricket goes in the next 10 years.

Television is also funding the increasing role of technology in the game and that is a tenuous relationship. Clearly technology is becoming better, but it is far from becoming foolproof, and the use of Hawk-Eye to adjudicate lbws is dangerous. In the next year we will all have an idea of what the players think but also what the umpires think. I suspect, though, that we cannot go too much further with what we have at the moment. There are still unresolved issues with technology and with those who control it, and I won't be surprised if there is a move towards giving the umpires a little more power and only using technology in the most obvious instances.

What I look forward to the most, though, is to see the game grow. Towards the end of the decade, cricketers from Afghanistan showed what sport can achieve in areas of conflict and resultant strife. There are many cricketers waiting to be discovered, many flowers being born to blush unseen. Cricket's real achievement in the decade ahead will be to reach out to those and offer them a ray of hope and a game of cricket.