Commerce Media and Cricket Today

Commerce, Media And Cricket Today:  The 1970s was the decade, in which cricket transformed. It was notable for the exclusion of "Racist” South Africa from interactional cricket. Year 1971 was a landmark year because the first One International was played between England Australia in Melbourne. In 1975, the first World Cup was staged successfully.  In 1977 cricket was change forever by a businessman.

World Series Cricket: Kerry Packer, an Australian television tycoon saw the money-making potential of cricket as a televised sport. He signed up fifty-one of the world’s leading cricketers against the wishes of the National Cricket Boards and for about two years staged unofficial Tests and one day internationals under the name of World Series Cricket. It was described as Packer s circus.

Kerry Packer made cricket mote attractive to television audiences which changed the nature of the game. Coloured dress, protective helmets, field restrictions, cricket under lights, became standard part of the post Packer game. Packer gave the lesson that cricket was a marketable game.

Modern cricket generated huge revenues.As it expanded the audience for the game by beaming cricket into small town and villages. children of villages got a chance to see the international cricket. The world wide reach of multi-national television companies created a global market for cricket.

Cricket boards became the rich by selling television rights to television companies.again television channels made money by selling television spots to companies who were willingly paying large sums of money to air commercials for their products to attract the numerous audience of cricket.Even today cricket earns a huge revenue due to its immense populatrity.

Television and Expansion of Cricket: Television channels made money by selling sports television coverage made cricketers celebrities. The cricketers made larger sums of money by making commercials for a wide range of products, from tyres to Colas, on television. Television coverage changed cricket. It expanded the audience for the game by beaming cricket into small towns and villages. The technology of satellite television and the world wide reach of multinational television companies created a global market for cricket.

Since, India had the largest viewership and market for the game, the game's centre of gravity shifted to South Asia. This shift was symbolised by the shifting of the International Cricket Council (ICC) headquarters from London to tax free Dubai. The centre of gravity in cricket has shifted away from the old Anglo-Australian axis to sub continental teams like India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka

Advances in Bowling:  Pakistan has pioneered two great advances in bowling: the doosra and the reverse swing Both skills were developed in response to sub continental conditions the doosra to counter aggressive batsmen with heavy modern bats who were threatening to make finger-spin obsolete and reverse swing to move the ball in on dusty, unresponsive wickets under clear skies. At first these bowling techniques were greeted with great suspicion by countries like Britain and Australia. Bur later it was accepted that the laws of cricket could not continue to be framed for Brinish or Australian conditions of play, they became part of the techniques of all bowlers, everywhere in the world.

Conclusion

One hundred and fifty years ago, the Paris, the first Indian cricketers struggled for an open space to play cricket. Today, Indian players are the best-paid, most famous cricketers in the game. The factors behind this transformation are the replacement of the gentlemanly amateur by the paid professional, the triumph of the one-day game in place of Test cricket and the triumph of the one-day game in place of Test cricket and the remarkable changes in global commerce and technology. In this way a colonial sport became the most popular game in our country.