Champions League blurring Twenty20 vision further on club and country loyalties after IPL

Players of different nationalities do not play as representatives of countries in the Champions League, but the tournament serves only the purpose of duplication.

Players of different nationalities do not play as representatives of countries in the Champions League, but the tournament serves only the purpose of duplication. Manjunath Kiran / AFP

On Saturday night, I watched my first game of the Champions League Twenty20 (CLT20). Actually, I watched about half of it.

Truthfully, I may have watched one before, but since I cannot recall a single moment, result, winner or a loser, champion, or an innings or a spell, I am confident Saturday was my first.

I probably would not have watched it, and the tournament itself would easily have passed by, had I not flipped through just as the Lahore Lions were closing out an outstanding fielding innings.

Two Pakistani fast bowlers were bowling well, which is always reason to tune in: at one end, Aizaz Cheema ran in, spurred on by the injustices of his continuing exclusion from the national side, and at the other, Wahab Riaz, riding the crest of his present resurgence.

There was also one of sport’s most seductive narratives at play, with Lahore’s David up against the Mumbai Indians’ Goliath.

On one side, the millionaires of Mumbai, supremely well-resourced, with extravagant coaching structures, sprinkled with some outstanding international talent, playing with home support and used to competing in the world’s biggest Twenty20 league.

On the other, the lesser-salaried of Lahore (not quite the paupers they are made out to be), with one coach, and not even sure until a week ago whether they would get a visa to play in India.

Malcolm Gladwell’s last book is all about debunking David – and symbolic Davids thereafter – as not quite the underdogs they are made out to be, and he may be on to something.

In any case, with six current or very recent internationals in the side, the Lions are hardly going to be an easy side.

But still, such is the omnipresence and omnipotence of the Indian Premier League (IPL) that any side from within automatically start as favourites in such contests.

The India-Pakistan angle was the clincher, though, bowling as Cheema and Riaz were to Harbajhan Singh and Praveen Kumar.

This would be reversed later, with Singh and Kumar bowling to two of Pakistan’s finest young batsmen, and within those permutations, the match felt most alive with ploys and counter-ploys and ego and pride.

What got me was that it was, essentially, an India-Pakistan match, since 18 of the 22 players involved were from the two countries. It gave the match some meaning, because the Lions were playing as if it meant something for a nation, not just a club.

It probably did. Having been kept out of the tournament for so long, given that their players still are not allowed in the IPL, and that their national side have not played a full bilateral series against India in seven years, occasions such as these are a chance for Pakistani players to make a point about the present world order.

There are teams from the Caribbean, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia in the tournament, but I cannot imagine that they will garner the kind of support the Lions might, bearers of the outcasts.

But therein lies a broader truth about loyalties in cricket.

The idea of the IPL and the CLT20, and every other Twenty20 league, is that nationality matters, but not in the way we think, with players lined up against each other, traditionally based on the idea of nation-states.

Nationality is important as an example of how it does not matter, working at that weird level where there is some altruism to the IPL and Twenty20 league.

Here, players from different countries come together and play, not as representatives of countries.

These tournaments also tried not to suppress existing loyalties as much as create new ones for fans and players alike.

In the subcontinent especially, supporting domestic city or region-based sides has traditionally been mere hipster credential, not a widespread trend. In India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, cricket has always been about the national side.

Has it worked? Probably not if you take just the lukewarm response of the CLT20, but perhaps so when considering the success of the IPL.

Cricket has grappled with this for some time now, recognising that it is an anachronism in modern sport, which is increasingly run – and profitably – along the lines of clubs and franchises, not nations.

Lalit Modi’s idea of the IPL dates back to the mid-1990s. And at the start of the millennium, three academics, including the renowned sports economist Stefan Szymanski, wrote papers advocating radical reform.

It was a response to the corruption scandals and called for the creation of an international club competition of 50-over cricket.

That tournament would help raise money to run Test cricket and pay better salaries to elite cricketers, reversing the trend wherein international cricket subsidised domestic cricket.

Cricket has found its way to that solution, though it is arguable its problems are no longer the same as they were back then.

And another shorter, more-lucrative format since that report was authored has merely complicated the entire situation.

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