Not money for nothing

As a cricketer it’s hard to look at the positives when you are out of the game, but with my injury I’ve been able to watch more cricket and think a bit more about different things in cricket. I have been watching the Australian domestic cricket on TV and this set my mind thinking. I was watching Michael Hussey playing the other day, and realised that there were many people pushing for his place in the team.

That’s very much the case in cricket here too, but there is a fundamental difference: professionalism, a term commonly used but rarely defined at the grassroots level. Professionalism is the single biggest difference between cricket in India, and say, cricket in Australia, which should be the benchmark for all of us.

The mindset in India is to get an education that will secure a job, and then think about how to get a particular salary. We’re used to that kind of a life, and that’s how we bring up our children. Parents need to realise that cricket now offers a decent standard of living and earning potential, and not just for international cricketers. They need to stop thinking they are taking a huge gamble with their child’s life if they let a child pursue sport as career. After all, in India cricket is not like, say, tennis, where individuals have to get their own sponsorships for expensive coaching, and then have to fund their own travel to international tournaments. There are many companies working with cricketers, there are sponsors, and even individuals, who are willing to help those who need it.

The associations, too, need to change their mindsets. At any given time, there are about 2000 to 3000 kids playing cricket in academies and coaching camps in Chennai alone. Obviously just the selectors and former cricketers can’t be spotting all the talent. People from associations, who run these academies, need to do that extra bit when they see a special talent. They should try and persuade the child’s parents to let the child pursue a life in cricket. While this might sound a bit intrusive, but it is sometimes needed. The media, too, is obsessed with icons, and understandably so, given that media houses exist to make a profit. But they too need to take the game at the lower levels more seriously.

Once cricket is seen as a possible profession, a youngster’s life can be so altered that cricket becomes second nature to him. After all, as professional cricketers, we are being paid to do what we do. My friends often tell me, “You cricketers earn a lot.” This is a silly way of looking at things. I concede that for the actual four days of a first-class match we are paid well, but a whole lot goes into making us deserving of playing those four days. Sometimes we end up doing more than what a person does at a regular day job.

At the same time, I understand what the common man means when he says that cricketers earn a lot. That is why all cricketers need to understand that in order to earn their pay, they need to go beyond runs and wickets. If one wants a job in a bank, one has to learn about finance in school and college and take a degree in a relevant subject. That is the groundwork one has to do. Similarly, there is certain groundwork that each cricketer needs to do, in order to earn and justify the earnings. I call it a player’s cricketing ethics.

It is possible to get a degree in Engineering by merely passing the exams and not really learning the concepts in depth, and also get a job based on that degree. Similarly, a cricketer can waste the opportunities in the nets and in training, and with some talent still play professional cricket. One has to work purposefully hard at training, at educating oneself in the right cricket ethics, because one is being paid to play, and at the same time it is a privilege to play first-class cricket. A first-class cricketer in India now earns close to Rs 1.5 lakh per Ranji match. If he doesn’t justify his pay as much as he possibly can, he is denying someone else this earning.

At the same time it is not so serious and tough; the enjoyment factor still has to be there, after all this is sport. But if we’re serious about improving as a cricketing nation, then cricketers need to take responsibility for professionalism. There’s no point just saying that we’ll win the next World Cup, in 2011, or the next one. We need to ask ourselves what we are actually doing to make that happen.

Firstly, we need to get our cricketing ethics right, and not just the players who are playing international cricket. We need to start with the kids, in the manner that a country like China starts preparing young children for the Olympics that may happen 8-12 years later. Rather than telling kids, “Perform, or you’ll be dropped”, we need to get a genuine cricket culture going. I’ve heard a lot about the sporting culture in Australia, and I’m sure that has not come about overnight. Similarly we need a change in mindset across the board, and it will take time.

Only if all these things happen, will we have a realistic chance of building a cricket team that can challenge Australia. I started with Hussey, and I’ll finish with him. Even with so many cricketers pushing for his place, he plays on, his game keeps developing all the time. It’s because he does not fear for his spot in the side. In India, when a cricketer is under pressure, everyone gets after him – the media, former players, selectors, even his own team-mates, but this doesn’t happen in Australia. That’s because their players have struggled at each level to climb up a very long ladder, and earned respect. That’s because they have strong cricketing ethics, and that’s what we need to emulate, not the end result.