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For those of us daft enough to admit to watching professional wrestling – or dafter still to study it as an art form with the pretentiousness that’s normally the preserve of the wine writer – the Pier 6 brawl curdles opinion.
In the right circumstances, it can be a lot of fun. Why deny the furtive pleasure of a choreographed, no-holds-barred fight in which the combatants, having run out of furniture, weaponry, and spare bodies around the arena, turn to the catering table for things to hurt each other with? I mean, nothing says, “It just got real,” like a jar of violent mustard entering the picture.
But hardcore wrestling has also caused irreparable damage. It has eaten at the traditional style from within, cannibalising it. I get a lot of grief about wrestling being fake (if an imagined universe, an internal logic all its own, is fake, what of books and movies?). A traditional wrestling match can, however, bend the very edges of reality. When two accomplished performers set out to the ring, often all they have is the finish, the match’s last act. Everything else, they invent with their bodies and movement: listening to the crowd, sensing its tendencies, improvising all the time, they tell a profound story shaped by wrestling canon, their shared past, and what the spectators want. How is this not real? To me, it’s art created from an absorption in the moment; and in that moment, disbelief is suspended.
The trouble is it’s rare. Wrestlers with the athleticism, storytelling ability and experience needed to entrance an audience aren’t common. And few promoters have pockets deep enough for the long-term view; recruiting the best performers is expensive, developing them takes time: therefore the quick-fix of the hardcore style. It doesn’t require a range of refined physical skills, years of honing the craft or the awareness of a story’s emotional arc. An appetite for punishment and a desire for the limelight will do. And there are plenty who match that description.
So the hits keep coming, the gimmicks get bigger, people are thrown onto flaming tables and strung off barbed wire, welted with chairs and kitchen sinks and fire-extinguishers – a point is reached where the ring actually explodes, and the crowd can’t care less. They’ve been inured, desensitised. Oh, the irony! The point of the quick-fix is to fabricate buzz, both attracting new fans and keeping the current ones invested. What happens instead is traditional wrestling is now seen as dowdy; the fans are less able to appreciate it for what it is, having had their palates burnt by hardcore. Most bandwagon-jumpers soon realise there are only so many times they can be shocked by gratuitous brutality; the novelty fades, the art of the traditional form never appealed to them in any case, and they tune right out.
When I recently heard Sachin Tendulkar talk up Twenty20 cricket as an entry-point for the uninitiated into Test cricket, I was struck by the parallels with wrestling. The sense over the last decade or so – and it’s by no means novel – is that the drawing power of the five-day format has declined, especially in India. The first India-South Africa Test at Mohali, for example, received 1,000, 1,000 and 3,000 fans the three days it was alive — this, in a stadium with a capacity of 27,000. And it seemed a match that could sell itself: Test cricket’s return to India after two years; the world’s best team; Dale Steyn, A.B. de Villiers; bristling, glowering Virat Kohli. I, for one, thought there was nothing bristling, glowering Virat Kohli couldn’t sell.
My colleague Vijay Lokapally, who covered the game and has been reporting on cricket since the ’80s, says there has been a noticeable dip in interest since the mid-2000s accompanied by a reduction in Test cricket-literacy. Fewer people, he says, can tell good passages of play from bad. He lists Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru as the only venues in India where the cadence of duration cricket still resonates.
Several first-class and Test cricketers I’ve spoken to – both former and current – have made a similar point. They don’t grudge Twenty20 its space and success – it has improved many lives – but they feel it’s harder for Tests to engage an audience these days. Given how it’s commonly held that Twenty20 cricket has affected the consumption of Test cricket – like hardcore wrestling has, traditional – I’m intrigued that it’s seen and portrayed sometimes as a lure for the unsuspecting fan: if you’re seduced by this, perhaps you’ll fall in love with that. I wonder why. Is there a feeling in some quarters that the sustainable is being sacrificed on the altar of the unsustainable? That Twenty20 leagues, isolated from other forms of the game, aren’t the money-spinners some administrators think they will be? Is it merely disingenuous lip-service? Or weird, misplaced guilt inherent in a generation nursed on Tests, something future generations will be free of?
I doubt Tendulkar was being anything but earnest. He is besotted with Test cricket. He has spoken in the past of letting schoolchildren in free, educating them about the game and making them fans for life. He was talking, besides, in an American context, which needs to be factored in. But it’s something others have said, as well. “This is an introduction,” Tendulkar had said, of the All Stars event in the USA. “If there are guys who want to understand more about the different formats then they are going to follow Test cricket and ODIs. Even if you get ten percent of the guys to follow Test cricket and like Test cricket, it's a win-win situation.” There is the chance of this happening, of course. But when something is marketed as “fast, gripping … lot of energy and invariably the finishes are real close”, will those coming for it stay to discover a more complex, involved form? Particularly since there’s the compelling argument that Twenty20 isn’t cricket at all – its premise and texture are considerably different from those of the longer forms. Dividing ten wickets over 20 overs takes caution out of it, modifying judgment significantly. The batsman is forced to take chances he wouldn’t otherwise consider, the bowler isn’t looking strictly for wickets. Everything’s directed towards boundary-hitting. The definition of entertainment is appropriated, the idea of the game altered. What’s the probability then of someone crossing over from Twenty20 to Tests?
True, Test cricket isn’t hermetically sealed from Twenty20. The risk-reward decision a batsman makes on every ball has greater possibilities now. David Warner, celebrated in Australia as the first batsman to successfully swim upstream — from short-duration to long-duration cricket — has shown as much, most recently in the first two Tests against New Zealand. But the gravity of Test cricket still constrains the action, within limits, to its basic premise: a balance between bat and ball. Warner made a run of fifties in England, but superior bowling in more helpful conditions with the field set right ensured he didn’t hurt the opposition. Whatever seeps from Twenty20 into Tests is sieved by the most forbidding of filters. Test cricket is therefore still very different; it demands different handling. Which is why I’m uncertain Twenty20 can act as a gateway. For what it’s worth, it didn’t work with wrestling among the people I knew. Hardly any who were hooked by hardcore, when it was all the rage, cared to sample the traditional style for long enough to like it.
I speak of Test cricket’s appeal in general, but there is a distinction between fans at the ground and those following it elsewhere. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the countries that have kept the crowds squeezing through the turnstiles consistently over the years – Australia, England, and, to a lesser degree, South Africa – have turned out the strongest Test teams. None has had India’s numbers advantage, which explains in part the concerted move to get as many people involved as possible. What they have had is a tradition of cricket-watching that has grown richer and stronger with repetition. The value of a clearly defined season and welcoming, iconic Test grounds is immeasurable. It’s a habit, but also an occasion – and there’s a conscious effort to promote it as that, the familiar comfort of a well-worn house slipper and the excitement of something a touch more fetching, both rolled into one. The day-night Test at the Adelaide Oval is the boldest iteration of this endeavour.
India has suffered in comparison. The political expediency of the BCCI’s rotation policy and the volume of modern-day cricket have cost the forming of custom. Chennai’s Pongal Test, for instance, remains only in the collective, wistful memory of old-timers. Kolkata’s Eden Gardens is an obvious case of an opportunity squandered. Most cricketers include Eden, along with Lord’s and the Melbourne Cricket Ground, in their bucket lists – A.B. de Villiers’s smile lit up a cramped, smoky press-room in 2010, as he spoke of the fulfilment of completing the overseas trinity. But you wouldn’t know it from the way Eden has been treated. Despite holding the record for the biggest-ever crowd, both for a single day (100,000 estimated) and cumulatively over a Test (465,000 estimated), it has hosted just eight Tests since that act of resurrection in 2001. During the same period, Lord’s has staged 31, while the MCG will conduct its 16th this Boxing Day.
England and Australia also seem to know how to present the game just so. Test cricket is at once an immersive and a peripheral experience; it can command every sense, but it also affords the freedom to drift off, so reality and fantasy coalesce. I’ve been fortunate to travel several times to stadiums in both countries, and I think it begins with the architecture. Unlike the concrete monsters that seem the norm in India, most grounds in England and Australia are warm, open, intimate – even the cavernous MCG and buttoned-up Lord’s. There aren’t spiked barrier-fences separating spectator from action and obstructing the view. The space also feels inclusive, once security has been dealt with. The kids play cricket, sometimes on the field during lunch and tea, sometimes in designated parts of the practice area, and almost always on the grass-banks. (And if you ask nicely and don’t hog the bat, you can join in). There are places to wander off to – bat-making workshops; museums that chronicle the ground’s lore; live jazz bands, such as the one that played at the Adelaide Oval after an Indian batting collapse. Food and drink, an integral part of the sensory delights of a day at cricket, are easily available, if sometimes expensive. But in the main – in stark contrast to the attitude in India – there’s an attempt to make things as comfortable as possible. Convenient commutes, organised queues, and working toilets, cases in point.
But the real game-changer is the clip-on radio earpiece that’s sold at grounds for very little. It allows you to tune into either the host broadcaster or the radio station’s commentary, completing the 360-degree experience. Just by being at the ground, you have a wider picture than what TV’s produced focus allows; you pick up more live, especially the tics and kinaesthetics of individual players and the game’s natural energy. With replays on the big screen and commentary, you don’t lose out on what the viewer at home has access to. It isn’t merely the best of both worlds, but a hybrid, super world in which you live the Test as if it were being played through you. What’s coming through that earpiece is just as important. Such is the depth of analysis, so thorough the engagement with the finer technical and tactical aspects of the game that it becomes part of the conversation; this isn’t shop-talk that excludes the common fan, but fun, accessible instruction that nurtures and makes intuitive an appreciation of the game’s fibre.
It’s no surprise that the numbers attending Test cricket in England and Australia have remained healthy. Three of the four best-attended Tests on English soil have occurred in the last 11 years – 2004, 2009, and 2011, all at Lord’s. I was at the 2011 game, the historical 2000th Test, and the queues in and around St. John’s Wood frightened me. An eager 140,111 eventually found their way in over the course of five days. Every Test in that series brought fans in droves: even Birmingham, which was suffering violent, unprecedented riots on the streets, managed to pack Edgbaston on at least two days, or so it seemed. Keep in mind though that England’s stadiums fill easier. They are smaller than most of Australia’s – none of them can seat more than 30,000 – and so demand almost always outstrips supply. This has meant higher ticket prices, which restrict who can get in. If there’s a criticism of the English and Wales Cricket Board with regard to promoting the five-day game, it’s that they have largely let this be. It’s difficult, however, to argue against the gate collections of full houses.
Watching a Test in Australia is just as popular, but less expensive. The MCG saw its largest single-day attendance as recently as December 2013 – 91,092 for an Ashes Test. (The highest turnout for the Big Bash, Australia’s equivalent of the IPL, was 46,581). Moreover, four of the 11 biggest crowds in the ground’s history have come in the last nine years. At the Sydney Cricket Ground, Tests have attracted eight of the ten largest crowds since 2003 – between 41,000 and 46,000 in a ground that holds 48,000. The Adelaide Oval set a whole raft of records in 2013: for the first time in the Oval’s history, more than 30,000 fans attended four days of a Test; the third-day crowd of 36,414 was the hugest since 1955, the fourth-day gathering of 33,754 the best since 1937. The numbers for the next Test, featuring India, weren’t as high: 25,619; 15,397; 19,518; 27,639; 24,836. But the day-night Test is set to break all attendance records. At the WACA, the top five crowds in the last 10 years (between 21,000 and 24,000) have all surpassed the 2014 Big Bash final at the ground (20,783). The ’Gabba managed its most sizable audience for a trans-Tasman Test this November. But the average of just over 10,000 per day caused so much alarm that Cricket Australia is under pressure to introduce dynamic pricing – cheaper tickets both for lower-rated visiting teams and entry late in the day. If that isn’t a measure of how seriously Australia treats ground-attendance, I’m not sure what is.
Pricing appears the easiest thing for India’s cash-rich administrators to address at once if they are keen on making the fan a better deal for Test-watching. At the moment, there just isn’t enough value for money. Another idea to explore is Tendulkar’s suggestion for children. It’s been done before – STAR Sports has something for the India-South Africa series titled ‘My Debut Match’, promoted most endearingly by V.V.S. Laxman. A comprehensive, structured schools programme, however, could be just the ticket – besides, the chance of missing school is nothing to be sniffed at. The administrators mustn’t stop there, there’s far too much to be done. But right now would be a good time to start. Sure, India’s so vast it can probably alienate the Test cricket fan and still put out competitive teams in all formats. But why tempt fate?
