So, the proposed translocation of the Indian Premier League will presumably make dispatches in our newspapers somewhat livelier. An IPL match, say Delhi Daredevils versus Chennai Super Kings at Lord’s? Joy. Admit it, there’s a pleasant edge of subversion to the idea of bhangra pop blaring at a ground that still reeks of cricket’s racist/ imperialist past. And to the prospect of a South African city adopting Harbhajan Singh as a local hero. The possibility of petty thrills and instant sociology of the spectator stands is immense.

It could even be argued that the spectators — those that are found wherever it is that Lalit Modi may take the IPL — will find the stands more comfortable than those to be had in Indian stadiums. For the rest of us, those of us in India hoping to buy a ticket and take in a game at the nearest stadium, the highest authorities in the BCCI have it all figured out. Akin to Marie Antoinette’s “let them have cake” mythology, they tell us that we will always have TV. Come 4 pm, or 8 pm, on a match day, the visuals will be beamed live to us, just as they would have been if what is said still to be a “domestic tournament” had not been offshored.

And that is precisely the problem with cricket today. This disdain for the local; this disregard for any affiliation to the spectator. A case is often made that cricket’s administrators are united in a common pledge to gain for the game newer pastures. If by that they mean that they seek new waves of spectators, then a counterpoint must be put forth. Cricket today is being grown by national boards and the ICC on their conviction that the spectators are captive and will keep fidelity no matter where and how it is played. Cricket’s revenues have grown on strongly validated assumptions about its followers: give them more cricket, and they will consume it.

That is exactly what is being asserted in that glib rationale that the IPL’s translocation changes little for the Indian viewer: when the clock strikes four or eight, the TV set will light up with a Twenty20 match. Same difference, no? No. But curious how the spectator does not see.

The first voices of regret over the IPL’s shift have come from those who play it, not those who watch. Andrew Flintoff — I mean Andrew Flintoff — has this to say: “It’s disappointing news because one of the big attractions for me about playing the IPL was playing in India. I’ve never played a Twenty20 match there but I can imagine it will be an unbelievable experience because as a player you don’t get a chance very often to play in front of big crowds of 40,000 to 50,000 people.” (He’s uncharacteristically understated, because those numbers would give Calcutta’s Eden Gardens a vacant look.)

Flintoff is in no way suggesting that the tournament should have remained in India with the sole purpose of enhancing his playing experience. For the boards, safety and good playing conditions for the players are rightly a consideration. But it is their disregard for the spectator that, it may be argued, stops the sport from finding new followers outside of the Test-playing nations. When cricket is offshored — as it was on earlier occasions to Toronto and even Singapore — it did not seem to worry the BCCI that the stands were sparse and even then thinly filled. The odd expat and the millions back in India glued to TV sets would do very well, thank you.

The ICC too works this way. For it, to take cricket to newer lands is a matter of getting those countries to field teams in ICC tournaments; the point is not to make the game attractive to local people. As Messrs Modi and Manohar of the BCCI will find out if they do end up playing the IPL in England, even in a country so historically invested in cricket, gate-money-paying spectators are not a growing lot.

But the television-rights-driven commerce of the game makes such considerations secondary. The board need not care. (It’s not just in India. Consider how casually the Windies abandoned the charming and resonant Antigua Recreation Ground for the cheerless grandeur of the now disgraced Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, in itself an irony because Viv Richards’s father is part of the folklore at the ARG.)

Look at it another way. Were a Ranji game to be in progress at, say, Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy stadium, were Rahul Dravid to be batting to save Karnataka, with Punjab’s Harbhajan Singh making the dust fly on the mid-day track, and were the stands to be crammed with cheering crowds, would we watch? Of course. This is what they who run the game do not care about: that even for a television audience, the atmospherics in the stadium makes the difference. But to ensure that the stands are occupied in anticipation of that moment when the match turns interesting, the organisers need to make it worth the spectators’ while.

The IPL seemed to understand; the franchisees so dependent on city loyalties, it was hoped, would be mindful of the spectators’ comforts and allegiances. It was a hopeful sign because once established, those allegiances — not partisan allegiance but one derived from a connection to the ground — could be extended to reverse the dwindling attendance at Test matches. Clearly that hope was misplaced. That’s not what the game is about.

mini.kapoor@expressindia.com