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.