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Let me state my proposition right off the bat: Indian cricket is rich, powerful and brimming with talent but, to invoke the phrase immortalised in Hamlet, “there is something rotten about the state” of this once beautiful game in our country.

In the last couple of years, India has won more cricket trophies than any other nation, albeit in the frothier form which is white ball cricket. Our performance in Tests – the real deal, according to the cognoscenti – has been patchy. But who cares? 

The sheer razzmatazz, slap-bang frenzy and adrenaline rush induced by T20 cricket has brought in the hordes for whom cricket is mindless entertainment, and at its core, a vehicle for lacing into and settling scores with Pakistan. The T20 game has spawned a weird breed of fans, sated with jingoism and belligerence with nary a concern for the finer nuances of the game. But they’re invaluable, generating the mullah that has helped the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to fill its coffers and thereby lord over the cricketing universe. It’s been an ugly reign. 

Even as I write, the nation is agog with excitement at the prospect of back-to-back T20 World Cup triumphs, a feat that no country has ever achieved. Despite the drubbing by South Africa in our first fixture in the Super-eight stage, which hopefully has jolted the team out of its smugness, the pundits still consider India one of the favourites, especially after the demise of our bogey, Australia, at the preliminary stage itself.

But not everyone is clapping in joy. Decrepit cricket addicts like myself, who remember a time when cricket was played in the true spirit as a game among equals, have watched in alarm as the stooges of the regime have usurped and taken over cricket governance in the last few years, and have now even seized de facto control of the International Cricket Council........

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