While India is dominant, the South Asian cricket community in this country remain in the backwater Indian cricket once was
Mihir Bose
Next month, members of the Middlesex County Cricket Club, which plays at Lord’s, will meet for their annual meeting. In front of them will be the recommendation by one of their greatest cricketers, Mark Ramprakash, that his successor as President should be Naynesh Desai. No decision could be more significant.
Historically, Middlesex have bestowed their Presidency as an honour on their great cricketers, Gubby Allen, who ran English cricket for years and dictated how the Edrich and Compton stand should be designed, Plum Warner, after whom a stand is named at Lord’s, Denis Compton, one of the game’s greatest cricketers, Peter Parfitt and John Emburey both distinguished Test players.
Desai, while a club cricketer with whom I have played, can boast nothing like such a cricketing pedigree. What he has is something these great cricketers did not. He is a South Asian, and it will mean that this group, large numbers of whom play cricket at the grassroots but whose presence at the first-class level is minimal, will have found a voice in one of the most important cricket clubs of the country.
Desai, a successful lawyer who also represents some great cricketers like Ian Botham, Wasim Akram, and Mohammed Azharuddin, will bring a wealth of cricketing knowledge and a love for the game returning to his youth. He is aware of the racism people of colour suffer, having experienced it himself when he was a student at Norwich. He is very knowledgeable about the problems cricket faces. One of the main problems, he says, is that state schools are losing cricket fields, making it difficult for young people to get into the game. Public schools have cricket fields, which has resulted in many of England’s international cricketers being from public schools. It would be difficult to imagine a Denis Compton emerging from the state school. Cricket needs to tap into a group like the South Asians to grow.
This is necessary as cricket has no longer dominated the English summer in recent decades. Football has taken over, and the old balance between the two games has disappeared. When I first started reporting on sports for the Sunday Times, we used to have what was known as a cross-over season. In early May, just before the Cup Final, we would start reporting cricket and only switch back to football in September. Apart from England international matches, the media is so reluctant to report even first-class matches that the England and Wales Cricket Board pays agencies to do so.
This summer, when Middlesex play at Lord’s, the press box at Lord’s will be virtually deserted as newspapers no longer report county matches.
The other major change is whereas in the past, April marked the start of the English season, and cricketers from all over the world flocked to England to play the game, now the Indian Premier League dominates the cricket headlines. Such is the lure of the money offered by IPl that English cricketers will miss the start of their season, and even some England matches, to rush to India to earn the sort of money cricketers cannot earn elsewhere.
This change represents the fact that India has taken over this quintessential English game, the former colony putting its colonial master in the shade.
The way India has changed world cricket was evident last week during the ICC Champions Trophy. This tournament was meant to be played in Pakistan. However, the Indian government does not allow Indian cricketers to travel to Pakistan. But with India, the dominant power in cricket, India was given a special exemption for this tournament.
While all the other countries went to Pakistan, India played in Dubai, where the final was also played. It was like other countries were subjects paying homage to their king. And as befitting a king, India duly won the ICC Champions Trophy.This has come about because India now provides 80 per cent of world cricket’s income, which it keeps at almost 40 per cent, with no other Test nation getting more than 7 per cent. Much of this income comes from Indian businesses, either companies or television.
This summer, we will see further proof of India’s economic power.
Until the beginning of this century, India spent decades in the second division of cricket, with the first division being England, Australia, and West Indies. After its tour of 1959, its first-ever five-Test tour, India did not play a five-Test series in England until 2014. Now, India has never stopped playing the five-Test series. In the past, Indian tours were rare, but India tours this country every two years, just as Australia does.
And what is more, English cricket makes more money from an Indian tour than an Ashes tour because of the money it brings in selling rights to Indian television companies. But while India will play five Tests, their summer visit will be very fleeting. They will come for only a month, between June and July, and play no other matches. It will be like a rich King visiting one of his domains just to give his subjects a glimpse of his regal status while scattering a few pieces of gold as he parades down the street.
I have witnessed this revolution first-hand. I was a student in London, and I followed the Indian three-Test tour of England in 1971, which was the moment we had long dreamt about. Then, on August 24, 1971, India won at the Oval, its first-ever Test win in England, its first-ever series win in the land of its former conquerors. In Mumbai, they were celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi. Rajdeep Sardesai, son of Dilip, who helped India win at the Oval, was then six years old and recalls in his 2017 book, Democracy’s XI, how as the idol of Ganesh, the elephant God, was immersed in the sea, he was lifted on the shoulders of his uncle.
Indians in India did not see a single ball of the Oval triumph as there was no television in India. They could only follow it on the radio and heard of India’s triumph through the voice of the Englishman, Brian Johnston. Indians garlanded their radios.
Today, everybody in India seems to have a television set, and when India won the Champions Trophy, commentaries were provided in English and a host of Indian languages, including Bhojpuri, which is the most popular. Indeed, after the match, commentators interviewed Indian players in Hindi, and no translation was provided for viewers who did not know the language. The attitude was foreigners better learn Hindi. Unthinkable in 1971.But while India is dominant, the South Asian cricket community in this country remain in the backwater Indian cricket once was. This is where Desai will have to provide his expertise to change things.
Mihir Bose’s book The Nine Waves, The Extraordinary Story of How India Took Over World Cricket is available from www.mihirbose.com
