A T20 cricket match is a three-hour affair. The race to become the champions in this short format by winning the 2024 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup is taking place in the United States and the West Indies. The format’s viewer-friendliness notwithstanding, a handful of cricket lovers, who have been watching these matches without a break, might find it difficult to come across others doing the same. Social media activity before and after these matches has been much less than one might have expected — except during an obvious exception, the India-Pakistan match, which India won.
The T20 World Cup began soon after the Indian Premier League, the world’s most lucrative T20 league. The cash-rich league, which witnessed the participation of ten franchises, had a total of 74 matches played between March 22 and May 26. Having started on June 2, the T20 World Cup will end with the finals on June 29. Twenty nations have qualified for the present edition compared to 16 in the 2022 edition, because of which the tournament has ten more matches than the 45 matches played in 2022. How easy is it to watch 129 T20 matches in the IPL and the T20 World Cup in a short period of three months? One must not be surprised even if the hardcore T20 fan complains that it has been a tiring experience.
Rivals USA and Canada played the first match of the tournament. Ranked 17th in the ICC rankings, the USA scored 197 for 5 from 17.4 overs to surpass 23rd-ranked Canada’s 194/5 with consummate ease. The match between the two smaller teams offered good entertainment to the average T20 fan, a seeker of high-intensity, high-scoring contests between the bat and the ball. However, it was not a sign of things that followed.
The number of low-scoring matches must have surprised many viewers, regardless of whether they are watching them live or reading scorecards online to keep themselves updated. Oman scored 109, and Namibia responded with the same score for the loss of six wickets before winning the match in a Super Over finish. Sri Lanka were all out for 77, and South Africa responded with 80/4 with almost four overs left for a six-wicket win. Papua New Guinea collapsed for 77 against Uganda, and the latter scored 78/7 for a three-wicket win.
Afghanistan managed 159/6 against New Zealand, which offered zero resistance and crumbled for 75 in an 84-run victory for the former. India walked all over Ireland to register an eight-wicket win with 46 balls left after the latter were all out for 96. Interestingly, the Men in Blue have played three matches against Ireland, Pakistan and the United States. Their highest score is 119 all out against Pakistan in a significant six-run win. But then, except in the India-Pakistan match in which India batted first and could have put up more runs on the board, the national team did not have to chase down big targets anyway.
Can such low-scoring T20 matches please the average fan of the format? They usually don’t, as long as the viewer’s national team—or a personal favourite—does not cruise to an easy win against an opposition that fails to set a challenging target. Uganda have been guilty of two shockingly low scores: 58 all out in response to Afghanistan’s 183/5 in a 125-run loss and an even lower 39 all out against the West Indies in a 134-run loss. In a format where viewers expect runs in plenty—the sight of the ball sailing out of the ground for mammoth sixes has matchless appeal—the in-form Australia has been the only team to produce a 200-plus score. The Men in Yellow put up 201/7 against England, whose response of 165/6 was good enough in the context of the entire tournament but not this particular match. They lost by 36 runs.
One 200-plus score after 26 matches in an era, when matches seem most exciting when the batsmen are on a rampage, is not something many might have imagined. The Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York with a capacity of 34,000, the highest among all the stadiums in the US and the West Indies where these matches are being played, has proved to be a graveyard for batsmen. The drop-in pitches prepared in Adelaide and transported to the New York stadium have surprised batsmen because of their unpredictability. There is an awkward bounce, and many deliveries have been kept low, deceiving batsmen and making scoring difficult. Although lower scores have been made elsewhere, the pitches in New York have evidently favoured the bowlers, forcing the batsmen to be circumspect. That has reduced the possibility of scoring quick runs, at least in the slog overs, manifold.
Although the USA has performed remarkably so far, beating Pakistan and Canada and fighting hard against India, cricket isn’t popular in the country. The game is so unfamiliar to the average American that pop star Jennifer Lopez confused ‘cricket’ for ‘croquet’ in the British comedy show, The Graham Norton Show. The in-form West Indies, also co-hosts of the tournament, are performing at the right time. Of course, the West Indies teams from the past have played some of the best cricket in the history of the game.
Sports lovers in the sub-region of North America are passionate about the game, but their counterparts in the United States who aren’t from cricket-playing nations mostly have little or no understanding of what cricket is and how it is played. So, will the interest in the tournament pick up in the US as the tournament progresses? That is possible if non-cricket sports lovers want to see how their national team plays — should it reach the more competitive Super Eights round.
A similar thing should happen in India when the Men in Blue face much more competition in the Super Eights round. More viewers will start following the tournament closely from June 19, the day of the first Super Eights match and the beginning of a crucial phase for the home team as well as other qualifiers. Until then, the tournament will not generate much excitement — with most T20 cricket lovers choosing to skip the majority of the matches because of IPL fatigue, the possibility of low scores, or inappropriate telecast timings of 50 per cent of the matches in India.
The writer, a journalist for three decades, writes on literature and pop culture. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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