Gentleman's game no more

Back in the 1970s when I was young and innocent, cricket was a more sedate game. Okay, the Windies had five super bowlers who could make the ball travel faster than a speeding bullet. Then there was Clive Lloyd's one-tonne bat which could deliver a cover drive more powerful than a locomotive.

New Zealand had its supermen as well. I'll never forget being part of an SCG crowd that greeted Sir Richard Hadlee with the most knightly chant of "Hadlee's a w**ker".

Some cheeky bugger made a fortune selling stickers with that message at the SCG entrances for a dollar each. And who could forget that final over in a one-dayer when Lance Cairns used that weird-shaped bat to hit four sixes and two fours?

But these days, an over like that represents a disappointment in the Indian Premier League's Twenty20 competition. A decade ago, a run-rate of 5.5 per over in a 50-over game was almost unbeatable (unless, of course, you were an Aussie side facing Kiwi bowlers. Um, I think I may have hit a raw spot. I guess the truth hurts. Moving right along now).

But in India's Twenty20 competition, batsmen are almost expected to score at least 5.5 runs every second ball. I'm glad there aren't any Kiwi commentators. Can you imagine poor Sir Hadlee having to tell us every second ball: "He's hut ut for sex!"?

This is unashamedly a batsman's game designed for crowds who want to catch the ball more often than the fielders. And that's when they (at least the blokes) aren't staring at the young female cheerleaders.

And did you ever notice how all the cheerleaders are Anglo-Europeans?

Not a single Bollywood queen amongst them, despite the fact that Bollywood actresses dance in outfits that aren't exactly 10 degrees of lesser lewdness than the white Twenty20 cheerchicks.

Us south Asians are funny in that way. Sure, dancing semi-naked on the big screen may only be barely appropriate (pun intended) for good respectable Indian girls. But no self-respecting Indian woman would be caught dead strutting her naked curves before a packed stadium of cricket fans inebriated on Tiger beer and tiny bidi cigarettes. That dishonour is reserved for the gori mem (white mistress).

The team names are also a delight. Seriously, did the IPL send someone on a study tour of Australia's Rugby League competition?

Sure, names like the Sydney Bulldogs and Penrith Panthers might make sense in a game where violence is virtue. But cricket must surely cease to be a gentleman's game when it involves the Delhi Daredevils and the Kolkata Knight Riders.

One thing the IPL didn't borrow from the ARL is salary cap rules for players. The Indian crowds might call him a monkey, but I'm sure Andrew Symonds will forgive them after being paid a whopping US$1.35 million ($1.76 million) to play for the Hyderabad team known as the Deccan Chargers.

Kiwi Daniel Vettori must be feeling chuffed that, at US$625,000, he's worth almost double Glenn McGrath. And I wish my surname was Pathan so I'd have a chance at collecting a cheque for US$925,000 from Kings XI Punjab.

Twenty20 cricket is also turning into a huge culture shock for Western players and even for Western commentators. I was watching a game in which Greg Chappell was giving commentary with former Pakistan batsman Aamir Sohail. This is what I heard:

CHAPPELL: OK, Aamir, I think you've got Shahid Afridi sitting on the Deccan Chargers bench holding the mike to have a chat.

SOHAIL: Yes, Greg, I think he's ready to have a chat.

CHAPPELL: Right, well cross to Shahid Afridi now.

SOHAIL: Ha, tho Shahid, thum yeh bathao ke thum ethe saareh payse ke saat kya karoghe? Aakhir, in Hindustaniyoh ne thumhe paanch laakh se ziyaada Amrikan daalar diyeh hai.

AFRIDI: Ha, Aamir bhai, mujhe patha nahi ke mai ithe sare pays eke saath kiya karoon.

And on and on it went. Five minutes of the chastest Hindi and Urdu Greg Chappell would have ever heard from a fellow English-speaking commentator.

And Chappell was smart enough to know who was buttering his bread, and that any requests for subtitles just wouldn't be tolerated. I, too, will not translate. All you white cricket tragics out there must now get used to the fact that us brown sahibs rule the cricketing roost!

Soon we will be changing the name of the game to kirkit (in honour of my mum's terrific accent).

Your involvement in the game will from now on be limited to providing pretty cheerleaders and first-class players ready to sell their cricketing souls. And if you don't like it, you can go and play your own boring game where you might not even get a result even after playing and watching for an entire working week.

Because from now on, real cricket is a game whose result simply cannot be predicted until some overweight sari-clad South Indian lady starts singing.