Word: cricketed
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Even in countries where the people love it, cricket has never been a sport you would play to get rich. While the cream of the game in the traditional strongholds of England and Australia do better than all right these days, we're still talking about a level of reward - maybe $1 million a year for the highest-paid players - that wouldn't get the kings of Major League Baseball or Premier League soccer...
...corridors of the stately old game, however, a whiff of revolution is in the air. For decades a bit player on cricket's stage, India is using its burgeoning financial might to seize the lead role. The latest and most daring move of its cricket authority, the Board of Control for Cricket in India, is forming a new competition, the Indian Premier League (IPL), in which players can rake in more money for a few weeks of work than they'd normally make in years...
...vehicle is the new and helter-skelter Twenty20. For those not enamored of cricket, the game comes in three forms: stupefying (the traditional Test match, which can last five days and still not produce a result); slightly less stupefying (one-day cricket, in which scoring rates are quicker and matches continue into the night); and passably exciting (Twenty20, in which batsmen are pretty much obliged to try to belt every ball out of the park). An odd thing about the IPL is that, until recently, Indians didn't much like Twenty20 and were leading the way in trying to jazz...
...Many of cricket's traditional fans are worried that the IPL and all these piles of cash could lead the game into strife. They're old enough to remember cricket's first revolution in 1977, when the Australian TV mogul Kerry Packer secretly enticed most of the world's best players to join his rebel outfit, known as World Series Cricket (WSC). Back then, cricketers were expected to play for little besides national pride and really did get a crummy deal from the establishment - match fees in the hundreds of dollars and no contract money. WSC changed that and, though...
...Cricket lovers should prepare to be saddened by the sight of the two former champions Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, recently farewelled with much fanfare from Test cricket, creaking about in the IPL. Apart from a hefty pay cheque, what could these matches mean to the non-Indian players? What Australian, South African or New Zealander grows up dreaming of representing Jaipur, Mohali or Kolkata? The franchises comprise a hotchpotch of current and retired players from various countries. On what will the players draw to find the will to try their hardest? Gratitude, perhaps, for being paid so well...