What Next for Cricket After Ireland’s Good Show?

The cricket season has been going on for rather too long this season and I have probably been among the few who haven’t been obsessed by it. However now I take this turn to write on cricket without which the spring of 2011 in India will surely be incomplete.

I would like to talk about the strange aspect of Ireland’s good show in the 2011 Cricket World Cup and the resultant good press. While on the one hand Ireland’s cricket has deservedly got plaudits for the work going on for years, on the other it is perplexing to note that this is not unprecedented. And that is where the International Cricket Council (ICC) has gone wrong. I would refer to the 2003 Cricket World Cup and Kenya’s highly unexpected, romantic run to the semi-finals in a sport where they had been minnows till then. While people who watched that cup in detail would notice that the run to the semis was quite fortuitous, still on paper it has to be accepted that the feat was indeed achieved. What was ICC’s reaction and that of the other Test playing nations? Well, instead of promoting the sport further in Kenya, the powers simply patronized the achievement and Kenya got little competitive cricket over the next few years leading up to the following world cup. Predictably, the momentum was lost by then. If one traces further back, Kenya actually repeatedly beat Bangladesh in competitive internationals, yet it was the latter which achieved test status and not the former. And why was that? Perhaps because Bangladesh’s location in the sub-continent gave them a platform to gain ideas and skills from their neighbours! The clinching factor was that Bangladesh had a decent domestic structure which could sustain test cricket over time. Kenya should ideally have been cricket’s 11^th test playing nation and Ireland the 12^th eventually by 2020. While on the one hand it is necessary to not dilute the standards of test cricket, it is equally if not more important that cricket has to grow beyond a few countries outside the subcontinent. Over time India has become and will continue to grow as a cricketing superpower, on the field but more so off it. India will then have two options in the future. Either the Indian domestic calendar becomes the most sought after in the mould of American sports league like NBA, MLB, NFL etc. or India will have to cultivate international cricket opponents. Yes, quality and more numerous opponents are required.

So while we celebrate Ireland’s good run, we must also look back at the perplexing lost opportunity with Kenya. The Steve Tikolos, Maurice Odumbes and Thomas Odoyos of this world never got a chance to showcase their talents on the test field. Hope the same travesty does not fall on the Kevin O’Briens and Ryan Ten Doeschates of this world if they continue to impress in the international arena.

Medieval Superpowers of the 21st Century

A scan through the major national newspapers in India shows a number of familiar traits. One such trait is the constant rubbing-in in almost every other article of how the power balance in our world is changing. The allusion here is to the 21^st century being an Asian century and China and India to rise as the two greatest superpowers in the world displacing the United States of America and other great west European powers that have held sway over the last few centuries. While on the one hand this is an extremely encouraging trend, on the other hand it has certain worrying signs. History shows us that it is the natural course over time that superpowers are displaced and replaced by new ones. However, one cannot avoid pondering that China and India’s rise as the big powers may in at least one way herald a leap back in to the medieval age. The reasons for such a line of thinking I have explained below.

Pre-agrarian tribal societies were in essence egalitarian with leaders often elected by consent and power rarely being directly attained by each succeeding generation. With the advent of agriculture, human civilizations became markedly less democratic and power now centred in a few hands. In various forms under various names, it was a tiny elite which now increasingly made decisions for the vast majority of population within the state. This trend continued until industrialization set in. So roughly till the 18^th century, major world or regional powers were known primarily by the amount of power and wealth the rulers had. The Romans, Arabs, Mongols, Turks, Mughals and the Spanish possessed enormous amount of real estate with millions of subjects. Yet the conditions of the vast majority of people within these empires may not have been much worse from empires barely exceeding the size of a few cities. In fact, the vast majority of people in pre-industrial (agrarian) societies cannot be called ‘poor’, as that was very much the norm and not the exception.

Industrialization brought many problems to this scenario and some of those problems (pollution?) show no signs of solution 200 years on. However over time, one thing industrialization and the coinciding democracy did was to distribute wealth among the people. Production of products reached such unprecedented levels and with increased education and exponentially improved transport networks, wealth no longer remained in a few hands. The common man now had a slice of empire building. Great Britain and other European powers in the 19^th century and the USA in the 20^th century were not powers solely because the sovereign possessed enormous amounts of wealth. Instead prosperity reached every nook and corner of the nations powered by highly improved technological nous. While distribution of wealth was never equal, the improvements from previous regimes were marked.

The 21^st century new powerhouse theory deviates from the trends observed in the last two centuries. Whichever way one looks at statistics and whichever set of data is examined, one thing is for sure: India and China are home to hundreds of millions of people for whom the dawn of each day brings an unsure future. There are various calculations to determine the poverty rate, some say 1$ a day some say 2$ a day. Then there is mass debate on which poverty must be targeted- absolute or relative. But even at the best of scenario there can never be any doubt that China and India each have more people below poverty line than the entire population of every other country on earth (perhaps minus USA and Indonesia). So this brings us back to the pre-industrial era once again. Once again it is mass which counts and not individual strengths. A large country will always be able to generate greater revenue in totality even if individual contribution is relatively limited. The power of the ruling class (plus middle class) is now what is driving these two economies forward. In the medieval age, a rich country purely meant that the king was richer than other kings. Though not an exact mirroring of the medieval age, the modern age’s power balance is imitating the past.

The Gurgaon Pigs

The title of this article might be a little misleading. Given the way the last word of the title is generally used, I shall not be in a position to blame the reader for any misunderstanding. No I am not going to launch in to a tirade against some unscrupulous neighbours of mine in the city of Gurgaon. I am not complaining against some corrupt leaders of this city by calling them ‘pigs’. I am not venting my anger against the man who nearly rammed his car in to mine. The use of the word in the title is ‘as much as possible’- harmless.

The reader has got it wrong again. Gurgaon Pigs is not the name of the latest IPL franchise. I meant the word in the literal sense. Yes indeed, I was referring to a litter of pigs which is now the single most dominant specie (after the Gurgaonite) on the streets of Gurgaon. I am talking about a particular litter just outside my apartments (opposite Park Plaza Hotel as I tell everyone). Yes indeed, the Millennium City of Gurgaon also has its fair share of wildlife.

To grasp the finer details of this litter, one has to go back in time and space. One has to find out the ownership or wild status of the litter. However I do not have that luxury as I was not staying in the city for nearly two years. Since I have come back to my city, I have been observing this litter over time. Everyday I have been reaching office 5 minutes later (not late but later than otherwise) primarily because of this observation time. In the summer, I observed frantic mating. It was as if the heat in the air had brought out the best of the lust in the gentle-pigs arousing their virility to the fullest extent. In the winter the piglets came out. The she-pig has been scouring the ends of her earth (between Park Plaza and Gold Souk) for forage to suckle her babies. Recent observation tells me the piglets are maturing in to pigs and scouring the earth themselves. A highlight in the lives of these piglets came about a month back, a day which surely hardened them for the toughest challenges they will face. A lot of us love pork and in fact the internet tells me that it is the maximum consumed meat item in the world. I am one of those who love pork and I could totally empathize with the street dogs on this fateful day. While I was on my way to office, I was met with a scene straight from the Savannah (the Savannah might even be shamed). A duo of street dogs drooling about pork set their sights upon these piglets. The two were attacking from either flank, while the target was being protected again from the two flanks by mama and papa pig. Street dog A attacked from the right wing so the father charged on it with the mother providing protection at the back. Now with A behind, it was the turn of street dog B to attack from the left but now the mother pig from her rear bazooked forward from defence to attack. This went on for fifteen odd minutes at the end of which time it remained a stalemate. I caught the next metro to office hoping to catch on the action after my return. While going I observed another couple of pigs in another corner doing what they do best in the winter chill. When I came back to the spot around twelve hours later I counted the number of piglets. They did not show any change in number. I assumed it was too early for the new couple on the locality so I heaved a sigh of relief for the ‘still safe’ piglets but felt a pang of sadness for the street dogs who missed the royal treat.