I have no doubt that India is an emotional nations, and it needs a spark of emotion to grab the attention of its people. Be it elections, sports, festivals, or any other occassion the ONLY reason why India participates in the event is 'emotion'.
The most glaring example of someone who has been cashing this emotional cow is Media, where we see all possible drama coated with an emotional layring. See the politicians in every election they talk about how we got independence and how their party members faced all possible trauma, or worst, they talk about castism to evoke our emotional disgust against other parties.
Following a similar trend, our cricket-crazy nation gives an undue inmportance to the game of cricket more because Pakistan also plays cricket and we derive a deep sense of relief when Indian teams beats Pakistan team on the pitch. And media leaves no stones unturned in making the most out of such situations.
A decade back when Md Azharuddin was leading the Indian side for the World-Cup he said this in an interview - "The best moment in cricket for me will be when Pakistan and India reaches the World-Cup finals and India emerges as the winner". The point I am trying to pick up all through is that we don't love the cricket because of uniqueness or its technicalities. We watch cricket just because Indian team plays cricket. We derive a sense of pride when India wins, we feel honoured when India beats Australia, and at the same time we feel powerful when India beats Pakistan. A normal Indian is least interested in knowing that how much did Sachin score in a Ranji match. Or, Mumbai team defeated West Bengal team in a match (even if Sachin and Ganguly are part of these teams). In a similar fashion a NORMAL Indian cricket-fan would be least interested in following the IPL matches where several teams would be fighting against each other (All of which has highly reputed Indian players).
A lot of time, money and energy has already gone into making this concept a success, but then I am doubly sure that this concept requires a lot of time to give-back the expected rewards. And I guess even the sponsers and team-owners are also aware of this, and thats the reason why they have done almost everything to gain public attention (promos, music, fashion, live-shows, press conference, cheer-leaders etc etc), but all this seems to going into the direction of 'Force 1' concept of Mallaya.
I have no doubt that these kind of activities will create some momentum in the desired direction, but it will take some time......atleast 3-5 years.
A stray thought came into my mind while I started writing this piece which I guess will help gather the momentum........Shahrukh should show his 6-pack abs after every match.....Priety should be doing some item number during the matches are on......and Mallaya should be serving free beer to everyone in audience during the breaks..... :)
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