Viewers' Fatigue

By Vikram Afzulpurkar

Test cricket faces more challenges in viewer interest especially since the dawn of the T20 and Indian Premier League era.

"You’re kidding about watching 6-hours cricket daily, right?"

Who enjoys cricket in white clothing?

“No time to watch 5-day cricket, that too for 6 hours a day,” says the busy IT executive. In a way this is the foot solder of India’s burgeoning cricket economy because:
1. He’s contributed to a lot of software export business earning valuable foreign exchange for neo rich India
2. He switches on the TV to watch cricket at will. Ad revenue shoots up and the end benefit is for all


Watcher's Fatigue
The India-West Indies series displays adequately how much fatigue India’s cricket hungry public have experienced watching it since the World Cup and the IPL. There’s no doubt that if this was a Twenty20 or a 50-over, there may have been more takers.

No Short Highlights’ Packages
Another reason Indian viewers may virtually ‘miss this series’ is that there is no 30-minute, for that matter even an hour’s highlights package. This is possibly because of the surfeit of sports channels. There are so many of them that Ten Cricket for instance would find it hard to fit in any other program in the afterhours of the match, their entire focus being on this series. As a result, the shortest highlights package is 2 hours.

A 2-hour package is again a bit too long for today’s cricket viewer especially after he or she has seen so much exciting cricket in the recent past. It’s possible these citizens would have watched a 2-hour package featuring the highlights of two T20 matches!

Viewer Wants Fast Action
Welcome to the new green thumb Indian television viewer. Action has to be fast for him. The conclusion is that there is definitely a paucity of time to watch action that is not considered exciting by today’s standards and secondly, that an overload has been there.

Even the cricket analyst, except those professionally employed who need to watch the action does not find the inclination to catch this 2-hour highlights package. Mainly because of the shift in focus to championships and tournaments. Also, the news of Champions League (T20) dates being declared (September 23) prompts viewers into a lull, alerting them that there’s “better fare” to follow, so why not take a break from watching.

Mini World Cup and a Prodigy’s Irony
This development is such a contrast to about twenty years ago when a series against the West Indies was considered an equivalent of the World Cup. Especially attempting to beat them in their own backyard was a special thing. Remember in ’89, a young 15-year prodigy was held back from Indian team selection because the selectors did not want to expose him to the fire of the West Indies.

Sachin Tendulkar had had a successful debut Ranji Trophy season and at that tender age could have broken Pakistan’s Mushtaq Ahmed’s world record of being the youngest Test debutant. Instead he was made to play against the lesser fire of the Pakistan side in October ’89 when he’d already turned 16. It’s another story that the Pakistan side was developing fearsome bowlers at the time, something better appreciated by about ’92 in the ‘reverse swing’ series in England.

Innovations
Coming back to the current India-West Indies series, there is the aggressive marketing angle of someday choosing to have flood-lit Tests depending on the prime time viewing of the audiences concerned, no doubt India’s huge band of fans. This would not be practical in the West Indies because a match starting at 5 pm Indian time would instead start at 9:30 pm. That is ruled out although this model may work for India’s Tests in Australia.

Another reason for the anticipated failure of innovations like these even in Australia is “Who’d want to watch grinding innings or long bowling spells for five and a half hours a day? It’s a different audience who like a different ‘cuisine’ these days?

Enduring Cricket
However, Test cricket by its very definition and nature will continue. The players are for it because it allows them to test their real skills as they say. It’s too steeped in tradition to currently ignore. Who knows, a day may come that the consumer will just tire of watching formats like T20 and 50-overs. It may just become fashionable to watch Test cricket again.

Fun Observations

Carl Hooper

A point of side interest – the floppy hat which had disappeared even from Test cricket during the last ten years has made its reentry into Tests, why even one-day matches and T20s. Forerunners for this revival are probably Sehwag, among others. When one thinks of this hat, ebullient former West Indies all-rounder Carl Hooper comes to mind. Hardly ever wore a helmet when batting, always a floppy. Some co-incidence that Sehwag’s part-time off spin action currently resembles Carl Hooper’s as L Sivaramkrishnan pointed out!