Cricket's crown jewel gears up for mega spectacle as it's time for people's World Cup to thrive

It is the most democratic of formats, the one that cricket used to push its case for the Olympics; to breach new markets; to connect with new audiences.

When the inaugural World T20 played out in 2007, it served as a launchpad for the IPL. There were 12 teams. Now there are 20. There’s the USA and Canada across the Atlantic, Namibia join South Africa and Zimbabwe from Africa, and Italy, a proud footballing nation, have made the foray in the cricket biosphere. That’s good progress. That said, few would bet against the fancied teams in the league phase that kicks off on Feb 7. That too will hopefully happen in time, but in a sense, the revolution begun by T20 cricket is only just beginning.

“We are all full time cricketers now. All our players are professionals and looking to do well,” said Monak Patel, USA captain at the captain’s day event in Mumbai on Thursday. Sharing the dais with Suryakumar Yadav, representing the USA has given the Gujarat-born cricketer a crack at the big stage.

At the tournament schedule launch event, ICC CEO Sanjog Gupta hailed the T20 format as “almost half the matches are won by the lower-ranked teams” and “over 55% are classified as close finishes”.

Such numbers would inspire 42-year-old Italian captain Wayne Madsen. Born in South Africa, he played international hockey for them, before switching to cricket. After harbouring hopes of playing for England following his county outings, his Italian passport helped him turn international. Italy narrowly missed out on the 2024 edition, but Madsen’s life-long wait will end next Monday as they debut against Scotland at the Eden Gardens. “Obviously football is the main sport in Italy. This is an opportunity for us to put cricket on the map,” Madsen said.

Take the case of growing fandom for cricket in Nepal. They filled the stadium in Dallas and Florida in the 2024 T20 World Cup, even danced through the rains despite a wash-out against Sri Lanka. The ICC discovered through their 2024 World Cup free live stream that three of the top five watched matches featured Nepal only behind India-Pakistan and India-Australia. Imagine, the thrill Nepal would feel, if they can score a win or two at the world stage, this year. “The last couple of years we have come quite close to beating South Africa. We have beaten the West Indies. We will be carrying that confidence to the World Cup,” Rohit Paudel, Nepal captain said. Rohit, a big fan of his namesake Rohit Sharma added, while it may be a difficult task, he will try to live up to the name.

Last year, the World Cricketers’ Association came out with a Global Game Structure Report where players who believed the ODI World Cup was the most important ICC event to play had come down to 50 from 86 % in 2019.

The inclination of the players to play T20s has been growing, especially towards franchise cricket, with an assembly line of players ready to turn freelancers to become globetrotting T20 citizens. We won’t see Heinrich Klaasen, one of the most destructive power hitters to come from South Africa. He has retired from internationals to focus solely on franchise leagues. “T20 cricket is the best entry point a new viewer can have because commitment is less as the games are shorter,” said Jimmy “Jomboy” O’Brien, an American baseball commentator, whose unique style, breaking down cricket to his fans through videos, has become a hit. “The impact of every ball is huge - every ball delivered has an effect on the game. And because your biggest stars can win you the match, it opens up huge opportunities to grow star players.”

So enshrined has T20 become with the advent of franchise leagues, led by IPL, its offshoots in India and now globally, that commercial mechanisms segue smoothly in the broadcast. From strategic ad breaks to verbal advertorial mentions in live commentary, every commercial spot is leveraged. T20 cricket opened up a new revenue generation segment like fantasy gaming. “I would do analytical explainer videos like matches where people should go heavy on top order picks in forming the eleven or go for the middle order because someone like Trent Boult may be able to run though the openers based on match-ups. People lapped it all up,” said Peeyush Sharma, a cricket analyst, who became a fantasy cricket expert.

Until it was recently outlawed, fantasy gaming generated around ₹5000 crore of advertising and marketing revenue in cricket. With people having a skin in the game, they were fully invested for three hours of prime time match play. The average Indian cricket fan does not necessarily need the second window of fantasy to tune in. For him, habituated to the razzmatazz of IPL, a T20 World Cup is the coming together of India’s best 15 T20 players for the ultimate prize. While the game’s global ambitions are taking baby steps through T20 action, in India, it has long since taken off.

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