Relic

How long do you preserve a vase gifted to your grandfather by his father?

For the last week or so, Netflix has been prodding me to watch this new movie called Maharaja. Each evening, as I log in to unwind with Seinfeld and dinner, a bruised and bandaged Vijay Sethupathi glares at me from the top half of the screen. I like Sethupathi’s acting, and my friends say Maharaja is great, but I am not quite buzzing to watch it.

Movies bore me. I find the prospect of sitting through one easily outweighed by the allure of other diversions. I could watch a 20-minute episode of a new thriller, or browse through some documentaries or video essays on Vox. Or I could check off some articles from the massive to-read pile accumulating on my browser tabs. Or I could just sleep.

Like a completely normal person, I have spent a lot of time wondering about this aversion to films. This isn’t a blanket dislike, of course, and while watching the favourites, it would be hard to imagine this in-built resistance, but those are exceptions. I had to be dragged to watch Black Panther, and only relented after a friend dangled the carrot of an auditory and visual feast, coupled with some, erm, botanical experiments on the ride back. I remain forever grateful.

It doesn’t seem to be an attention span issue either. Just last month, I  polished off Days at the Morisaki Bookshop in a single, Red Bull-fuelled night. A few days later, ten episodes of Mirzapur Season 3 vanished in a binge-watching haze.

Perhaps it’s the format. See, I can consume shows and books in chapters. At any point, I can either leave something on the bedside table for the next day or, if the stuff is potent enough, hook the entire supply into my veins. Movies demand a more unwavering commitment. With most, it’s a larger investment of time with a lower hits-per-minute ratio.

I chuckled at that analogy, because, over the last few weeks, I have spent countless hours watching England’s Test series against the West Indies. Test cricket, as you’d know, is a sport famous for its brevity. Seven hours between the start and end of play, ninety overs, possibly repeated for at least four days, if not five. Good shit.

As I write this, Kraigg Brathwaite, the West Indies captain, has just left four perfectly hittable balls alone with the nonchalance of a monk. Day one of the third Test, in a series where his team are trailing 0-2, and he won’t break character. The scribble on my notebook says, “Brath, composed as ever.” He’ll bat for all five days if given the chance. About 300 miles to the north, Zimbabwe and Ireland are playing a tense game at Belfast. There is a high chance that Ireland will win their first ever Test match over the weekend.

This fascination for Test cricket is a product of growing-up years, when Tests were the default format of the sport. Every tour began with a bunch of Tests, and cricketers were judged for their performance in the longest format. Until this millennium, a lot of one-day cricket was played in Test cricket gear too. The aesthetics were impeccable: lush grass, crisp white kits, the pristine sound of leather hitting willow, unadulterated by horns and DJs, and the audience responding with a dignified applause. Like a fashion line designed for a very specific, extremely British, way of life. The lack of distractions helped too. Television was a legitimate pastime. And in an Indian household that inhaled sports like Escobar-sourced coke, there was just a lot of Test cricket around me.

Over time, I developed a deep appreciation for the game's unique rhythms and narratives. It’s absurd how conditioning works. I cannot compute the idea of someone playing 40 tough balls in a T20 game as true resilience, when I have watched days and weeks of Rahul Dravid and Shivnarine Chanderpaul take body blows, see their teams crumble, and still refuse to give their opponents an inch.

In March 2017, a friend and I took an overnight bus to Bangalore to watch India play Australia. By a stroke of wild luck, our Airbnb host turned out to be the bassist of The Raghu Dixit Project. We entered his place at an ungodly 5 am, and found him and his two white Persian cats extremely welcoming. The next morning, once a cup of black coffee had done its job, he asked us why we were in Bangalore. When we told him, he looked at us with a mixture of alarm and amusement. “Really?”

Test cricket is a hard sell. Forget pre-teen kids, it will be a challenge to convince middle-aged zombies to sacrifice entire days to watch people block balls on loop. On a good day, you’ll get 300 runs or 10 wickets, and rarely both. The problem is compounded by how well T20 cricket is packaged and delivered to audiences, and how accessible it is with franchise leagues running around the calendar. The quality of cricket in those leagues isn’t terrible either. Honestly, if you’re going to spend seven straight hours watching sport, a) what is wrong with you? and b) I have a laundry list of options that are exponentially more engaging. And if you don’t like sport, all good, but Kraigg Brathwaite on day one of a Test match is not the gateway drug I’d prescribe.

Much of the cricket world is moving on too. A recent survey by the World Cricket Association revealed that less than half of the current professionals consider Test cricket as the pinnacle of the sport. Funnily enough - the timing of this essay wasn’t planned, I swear - West Indies and England make for key subjects in this conversation.

In the last couple of years, England’s Test team have undergone a radical transformation. They bat like hitting a boundary every over is compulsory by law, bowl with attacking fields, and select players for their ability to play at that tempo. On one day, they score 500 runs in 70 overs; on another, they declare at 393. This frenzied approach has been tagged with many slogans, and one of them is that they’re trying to “save Test cricket” by infusing it with a roller coaster-esque excitement. Credit where due - they have been extremely watchable, even if the result of operating on edge and hubris can be comical when things don’t come off.

But for all of England’s gloating, the West Indies were the original fire raisers. At a time when most teams played with caution and control, the West Indies packed their bowling lineup with fast bowlers who could make you smell death, and batters who treated the ball with disdain that bordered on insult. And these weren’t occasional fireworks. Between 1980 and 1995, they did not lose a single Test series. They also won the first two Men’s ODI World Cups in 1975 and 1979, like a side hustle. Even today, when members from that team walk into a room, the air changes, backs straighten, and eyes light up. Amongst those of a certain vintage, it remains a flex to say, “I watched the West Indies live.” They were the first to inject a serious dose of cool into an esoteric sport fit for English village afternoons.

For our generation, the West Indies first arrived in stories and then pictures. Tales of Richards and Marshall and Holding were passed on to us like precious heirlooms. By the time we saw Lara turn batting into a most stunning art form, and Ambrose make tough cricketers sweat from their armpits, we knew that they were carrying a torch lit decades ago.

That flame burns dimly and in a different shade now. Test matches in the Caribbean struggle for sponsors, nevermind crowds. In 2022, the people of Dominica pooled in money so that the team could have a shirt sticker for the match against India. That game was played to an almost empty stadium in Roseau.

The days of Gravy and Lara are long gone. To watch the West Indies test team now is to wonder at the natural talent those islands are blessed with, and the breadth of players who are missing from the team sheet. When they get it right, like at Brisbane in January, they are still exhilarating to watch. But it’s a slow drip, and despite all their best efforts, the team can resemble a motley crew more often than they’d like.

It’s a different story in T20 cricket. Since the inception of the format, the West Indies have been a conveyor belt of its most explosive talent. That’s where their best players go. And they seem to have dedicated themselves, for good reason, to that genre. Their cricket board neither has the internal revenue, nor external income, to afford a complete international calendar for their own players.

“By 2016, the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (FICA) found that leading players could earn more playing the IPL and two other leading T20 leagues, than playing international cricket for all barring three nations.” - Crickonomics, by Stefan Szymanski and Tim Wigmore

Houston, we have a massive fucking problem.

It’s easy for ex-cricketers or fans from thriving cricket nations to suggest that not everything is about the money. Or that, since the West Indies players are earning eye watering sums from franchise leagues, they can play Test cricket for the pride alone. Well, not quite. Firstly, cricket is a professional endeavour, so expecting to be paid for every project is not as blasphemous as us those from afar make it sound. Secondly, the West Indies is a collection of island nations, not a unified country. So, arguments of national pride immediately ring hollow. If questions of community and representation were to be put to them, they are more than living up to their “duty” by excelling in the most popular format of the sport. They are reaching a lot of people through their exploits in bright clothing at floodlit stadiums. Test cricket needs them more than they need Test cricket.

If that sounds like a cautionary tale for the oldest form of this game, what’s becoming of South Africa is a tolling bell. Since their post-Apartheid readmission to international cricket in 1992, South Africa have been a consistent powerhouse. They were probably the most well-rounded unit, across all formats, for twenty-five years. They still are very good, but their administrative body have reached a point of desperation where it is scrambling for revenue. Earlier this year, South Africa sent such a ridiculously makeshift Test team to New Zealand, it created a stir in the cricket fraternity. None of their regular players made the trip because the series clashed with the SA20, a new franchise league in the country. The last thing they can afford is their own T20 league sold short because their top players are in the opposite corner of the world, playing five-day cricket in front of half-empty stands.

Sri Lanka and New Zealand are following suit too. At this year’s World Cricket Connects conference in London, icons Kumar Sangakkara and Brendon McCullum acknowledged the very real possibility of Test cricket's demise in their respective countries. An average Test match loses the home nation around $500,000 net. Most don’t have the revenue streams to scoff at that number as collateral damage for keeping up a long tradition where crowd participation is minimal.

A 21st century sport with a 16th century vibe.

Can T20 not subsidise Test cricket, especially for the less affluent boards? Ideally. But here’s the thing. We live in a world of big bad wolves, and those damn wolves can get plenty hungry. There are three wolves - let’s call them Ramesh, Robert, and Ross - and for every $100 that the International Cricket Council doles out in annual revenue, those guys take home around $80 amongst themselves. They have used this money to build great huts with bathtubs and home theatre rooms. That leaves about $20 for the rest of the jungle. And all three, especially Ramesh, have also been allowed to build a water slide from their huts directly to the front office. So, truth be told, even that $20 is not very safe right now. And if the Zomato orders from Madagascar are any signs, those guys have an appetite for more.

Now, imagine having to set up infrastructure, support grassroots cricket, and pay your current employees from a fistful of peanuts. And once you’ve found a way to distribute some scraps, imagine bearing the burden of organising a party where no one will turn up, you will receive no gifts, and, by the end of the night, you’ll have to give away a few peanuts to the village mayor. That is the reality of Test cricket in n-3 countries.

Is Test cricket dying, then? Not quite, although it hasn’t been breathing too well. But it will be kept alive by the most important part of any sport: stories. At least for now, thankfully, cricket’s story is incomplete without Tests. Those who play it regularly love it like nothing else. To win a game, a team has to emerge stronger in a battle of attrition and endurance. Moods and momentum can change like the weather, and the gratification of riding all of that to come out on top is, if you hear the greats speak, unique.

But for a product to sustain itself, it must adapt and evolve. And for it to do those things, it must have clarity on where it’s at. As long as we take all our hints from the cumulative order history of a village instead of checking if everyone is well fed, this product will remain a preserve of the hungry wolves and a roomful of psychopathic nerds who have way too much free time.