Packer repackaged!
From the leisurely pace of the English greens where everything happened in slow motion to the rough dry and raucous atmosphere of Jamshedpur to the unknown pitches of Abu Dhabi or god knows where next, the game has traveled and will keep traveling. Thirty years ago the stiff upper lipped member of the MCC scoffed at pajama cricket today he proudly sits and dines with Flintoff and Pietersen at any public do.
It’s not too difficult to imagine a system in the future where an online television viewer rating system will actually set the pace of a match. Which basically means that if the viewership drops then players could be instructed to slog or maybe sledge and create drama so that viewers would come back. Viewers may even determine through a live online poll who’ll bat next or rather who’ll play in the first place If viewers don’t really come back then the match will be called off mid way, so what if Dravid Jr was due for a maiden double hundred.
Sponsors will pay on a currency basis and if a match gets really interesting then the slog overs will be auctioned to sponsors as the game progresses. At a macro level, market forces will determine who’ll play whom, where and how many times. So if the Indian expat market in Rwanda isn’t doing well for a bike manufacturer, he’ll be able to stage an India Pak tour there which will attract eyeballs. So what if it is the 365th India Pak match in that year. The ICC or whatever that it will be called will operate as tour organisers for such ‘events’. The other trend could be of standardization of surfaces, pitches, even conditions- you could have indoor stadia which are temperature and humidity controlled so that a match in Melbourne is the same as one in Malawi. This will also be done so that players and media do not ask for ‘heat rules’ cold rules and the like. Curators of course can find jobs as gardeners.
Players will be circus artistes (they already have colored clothing for starters)-some of them trapeze, some other jokers (this set could also have a lot of administrators). They’ll be highly paid, by the minute. The pay will be directly linked to various factors like average viewership when batting or decibel level of cheer when he walks in to bat. Statisticians of course will have a completely new set of metrics to maintain and mull over. Medical records will also be part of player profiles and a key statistic could be life expectancy in cricket- which will in turn determine money paid. Player profiles might be traded in cricket stock markets and the highest valued 11 at any point in time will play a given match. Which in turn means that there will be IPOs (Initial Player Offerings)
I meanwhile, am collecting all possible videos and DVDs of matches that have happened. Lest I forget what the game was like.
It’s not too difficult to imagine a system in the future where an online television viewer rating system will actually set the pace of a match. Which basically means that if the viewership drops then players could be instructed to slog or maybe sledge and create drama so that viewers would come back. Viewers may even determine through a live online poll who’ll bat next or rather who’ll play in the first place If viewers don’t really come back then the match will be called off mid way, so what if Dravid Jr was due for a maiden double hundred.
Sponsors will pay on a currency basis and if a match gets really interesting then the slog overs will be auctioned to sponsors as the game progresses. At a macro level, market forces will determine who’ll play whom, where and how many times. So if the Indian expat market in Rwanda isn’t doing well for a bike manufacturer, he’ll be able to stage an India Pak tour there which will attract eyeballs. So what if it is the 365th India Pak match in that year. The ICC or whatever that it will be called will operate as tour organisers for such ‘events’. The other trend could be of standardization of surfaces, pitches, even conditions- you could have indoor stadia which are temperature and humidity controlled so that a match in Melbourne is the same as one in Malawi. This will also be done so that players and media do not ask for ‘heat rules’ cold rules and the like. Curators of course can find jobs as gardeners.
Players will be circus artistes (they already have colored clothing for starters)-some of them trapeze, some other jokers (this set could also have a lot of administrators). They’ll be highly paid, by the minute. The pay will be directly linked to various factors like average viewership when batting or decibel level of cheer when he walks in to bat. Statisticians of course will have a completely new set of metrics to maintain and mull over. Medical records will also be part of player profiles and a key statistic could be life expectancy in cricket- which will in turn determine money paid. Player profiles might be traded in cricket stock markets and the highest valued 11 at any point in time will play a given match. Which in turn means that there will be IPOs (Initial Player Offerings)
I meanwhile, am collecting all possible videos and DVDs of matches that have happened. Lest I forget what the game was like.
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