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.)

... contd.