The Cricket World Cup 2023: Just does not feel the same anymore

The Cricket World Cup 2023: Just does not feel the same anymore

The world cup fever sweeps the whole nation every four years, as the Indian national team competes to win ICC’s flagship tournament. Every time India plays well in the game the sales of TVs soar, the stock market is bullish, there are eager faces on the everyday commute to work, and there is a festive atmosphere around the country. We associate the cricket world cup as a month-long festival similar to the celebrations of Christmas, Dussehra, and Eid. People come together to watch games, eat great food, and talk about Cricket teams for hours.

It is more than just a sports event to crown the best cricket country of the time, the world cup in India transcends standard sports fever. The stands are filled to the brim with impassioned fans celebrating each Virat Kohli cover drive or even a Bumrah dot ball. We throw around the phrase “Cricket is religion in India” but during India and Pakistan, cricket probably becomes even bigger than religion. The schools show the game during school hours, people leave their office earlier, Zomato drivers ask for the score during deliveries, the shopkeepers have their ancient CRT TVs playing the game, and there is this palpable nervousness and excitement in the air. Sometimes people find themselves asking the question; “How does a game of cricket dictate my mood and emotions for the next two weeks?”

The cricket fever climaxed in early 2011 when it was co-hosted by India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. The country was completely immersed in nearly every ball bowled during one of India’s games. The world cup was also probably Sachin Tendulkar’s last and set up a “last dance” storyline similar to Jordan in the 90s and Messi last year. It would have been heartbreaking for India to lose the world cup at home in front of tens of thousands of people in the stands and millions at home. Each ball in India’s knockout games sent tremors down the whole sub-continent as we patiently lived through each game all the way to the finals against Sri Lanka. The final nearly had a fairytale finish as the tournament concluded with that shot for six off the bat of captain MS Dhoni. It has become a moment that has been reminisced time and time again. There are very few moments in our collective memory that something has such significance to culture, that people can ask; “Where were you when MS Dhoni hit that winning shot?” 

“I don’t have very clear memories of 2011 because I was only seven years old at the time. I barely understood cricket and it felt like TVs would always bombard you with unnecessary statistics. I had no interest in the sport, but I did like playing cricket outside with my friends in the neighbourhood. On the final against Sri Lanka, I remember our apartment complex rented a projector screen in the garden and the whole neighbourhood came out to watch the game. I remember such vivid details from the night like the taste of the food, the colour of the chairs, the crackling noise of the commentary but mostly I remember the exact moment Dhoni hit that six. Fireworks all around us both figuratively and literally, it really was a defining moment of my childhood,” shared Sailesh Gupta, first year college student at Kiit.

The position we find ourselves in now is very similar to the golden years of 2011, when the world cup is back in India. The similarities between now and then are evident with India being a dominant team but failing to win major ICC trophies and some of the modern-day greats like Kohli and Sharma writing their own “last dance” storylines. However, as the similarities become evident, so do some obvious contrasts.

Too much of a good thing is bad

With Covid there was absolutely no international cricket or IPL for the lockdown months and led to the T20 world cup being delayed by a year. The world cup being delayed to 2021 meant that we have back-to-back T20 world cups in 2021 and 2022, with the ODI world cup set for 2023. This means three consecutive world cups being played within the last two years in addition to two Asia cup tournaments and regular IPL seasons. We went from a complete drought of cricket games to a flood of regular international cricket tournaments and big games. India vs Pakistan has been a marquee matchup ever since both countries stopped touring each other and could only face each other in ICC tournaments and Asia cups. From two and a half years of not playing Pakistan, India have been scheduled to face each other seven times including ICC world cups and Asia cups. The matchups we have all been very excited for to see Kohli v Rauf, Sharma v Afridi, and Babar v Bumrah, but the tense nervousness doesn’t feel as momentous because we are probably going to get another game soon. Before, if India won, Pakistan would have to wait at least two years before getting a chance to get the win back at an ICC tournament. The stakes were higher because the banter online was relevant for two years before the teams had a chance to change the result. When India lost their first ICC game against Pakistan, it felt awful for a week, but the social media banter simmered down in a few months after India beat Pakistan in the Asia cup. Then Pakistan gets the win back in the super fours of the Asia cup and it ends with Kohli’s spectacular innings in the 2022 world cup. The back and forth is exciting with constant matchups and regular cricket, but the stakes feel watered down. It also doesn’t help that the once heated and fierce rivalry has become a friendly and formal game with the verbal heat being replaced by the exchange of kind pleasantries. The intensity is there, but the consequences seem watered down as the wins don’t feel as special anymore and the losses don’t sting as much. There are going to be three world cups being given out in the last three consecutive years, and this means since 2021 there has been a new world cup champion being crowned. The consistency of the tournaments and rotating fixtures almost feel like the organisers are trying to force India to play Pakistan and that takes away from the natural intensity of the fixture. 

Local presence 

As of right now, India is running rampant through the group stage and each game is not about winning but by how much can India win by. The dominance by which they have won each game is soul crushing to every opposition and makes people fall asleep as the stakes are irrelevant in the later part of the group stage. Now the knockouts mean any team of the top four in the table need two good games to win the tournament and we all hope that India’s incredible form continues. However, the past has not been kind at ICC events and even the bored faces will glance at the TV screens when India was winning against Sri Lanka by 300 runs to see Shami pick up a fifer. The sport begets passion, and a billion people will watch the semi finals with bated breath to see India once again be victorious, just like 2011. 

However, the excitement seems to be restricted to a select few cities like the metros and the big state capitals in India. Our neighbours like Kolkata get important India games and the Barabati stadium has zero games this year. It was not expected for Odisha to host any of the world cup games because of our past disciplinary issues regarding the hail of water bottles and the size of the stadium. Maybe the excitement is missing because there is no way for anyone living in Odisha to be able to see the game. We probably got spoiled by the constant flow of international hockey games and ISL games we are able to host for the last few years. Odisha really is aiming to be a sports capital and have hosted hockey world cups, but the crown jewel of Indian sports seems to be just slightly out of reach. The excitement is palpable when India plays an inconsequential game against a touring country, so imagine the exhilaration if we were hosting a match for the world cup and India was playing.    

A new platform 

Besides the changed format giving us constant games, there are also different means by which we watch the games. The OTT format took off in the last few years, and with smartphones evolving, the way we watch our cricket games has completely changed.

“The only way we watched cricket was on the Television and that meant if you were travelling it would be impossible to watch cricket or keep scores. Around ten years ago, I had to take an overnight bus on the same night that the IPL final between MI and CSK was being played. I had a Nokia phone with a Reliance network service and 3G service had just been introduced. Me and my friends refreshed the page every over on that night and the next week my parents took away my phone because I spent an extra 500 rupees on my post-paid bill. Now I can stream IPL games in high definition for free on my regular Jio subscription with unlimited data anywhere with the network,” said Somya Ranajan Mishra, Kiit Law student.

People love watching the game but more than that it is an excuse to come together and bond over a 100 over game which may or may not be a whitewash. The sport forces conversation and festivities as fans and even non-fans come together to watch India play. Fathers and sons who barely talk, can have conversations for hours about team lineups, strategy, etc. Covid restricted us from coming together to enjoy the special moments in life, but with the OTT format no one wants to leave the comfort of their home to watch the games together. It is a new kind of restriction, a restriction of convenience that isolates people. Gone are the days where we huddled around CRT TVs, Radio sets, and budget projectors. We watch cricket on our smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs while falling asleep on the couch. 

Europeans and Americans have a strong culture of watching games at sports bars, but for India the world cup games are more of a family-friendly affair. We want to see the whole neighbourhood come out on the mosquito infested streets to watch the game in cheap plastic chairs and poor picture quality. It is because it’s a festival and not just a game, we are meant to be doing this together and not from the comfort of our homes. I urge you to call your friends to watch the game at your place or watch the game with your parents and family or go to a café or a bar. Don’t watch it by yourself on the bed, it just won’t feel special, and you, like the title of the article will say…. “The world cup just doesn’t feel the same anymore.”