The Story Of Cricket - Decolonization - Class 9 History Notes

Decolonization, or the process through which different parts of European empires became independent nations, began with the independence of India in 1947 and continued for the next half a century. This process led to the decline of British influence in trade, commerce, military affairs, international politics, and, inevitably, sporting matters.

 

But this did not happen at once; it took a while for the relative unimportance of post-imperial Britain to be reflected in the organization of world cricket. Even after Indian independence kick-started the disappearance of the British empire, the regulation of international cricket remained the business of the Imperial Cricket Conference ICC.

 

The ICC renamed the International Cricket Conference as late as 1965, was dominated by its foundation members, England and Australia, which retained the right of veto over its proceedings. Not till 1989 was the privileged position of England and Australia scrapped in favor of equal membership.

 

The colonial flavor of world cricket during the 1950s and 1960s can be seen from the fact that England and the other white commonwealth countries, Australia and New Zealand, continued to play Test cricket with South Africa, a racist state that practiced a policy of racial segregation which, among other things, barred non-whites (who made up the majority of South Africa�s population) from representing that country in Test matches.

 

Test-playing nations like India, Pakistan, and the West Indies boycotted South Africa, but they did not have the necessary power in the ICC to debar that country from Test cricket. That only came to pass when the political pressure to isolate South Africa applied by the newly decolonized nations of Asia and Africa combined with liberal feeling in Britain and forced the English cricket authorities to cancel a tour by South Africa in 1970.

 

Commerce, Media and Cricket Today

 

The 1970s was the decade in which cricket was transformed: it was a time when a traditional game evolved to fit a changing world. If 1970 was notable for the exclusion of South Africa from international cricket, 1971 was a landmark year because the first one-day international was played between England and Australia in Melbourne.

 

The enormous popularity of this shortened version of the game led to the first World Cup being successfully staged in 1975. Then in 1977, even as cricket celebrated 100 years of Test matches, the game was changed forever, not by a player or cricket administrator, but by a businessman.

 

Kerry Packer, an Australian television tycoon who saw the money-making potential of cricket as a televised sport, 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.

 

While Packer�s �circus� as it was then described folded up after two years, the innovations he introduced during this time to make cricket more attractive to television audiences endured and changed the nature of the game.

 

Colored dress, protective helmets, field restrictions, cricket under lights, became a standard part of the post-Packer game. Crucially, Packer drove home the lesson that cricket was a marketable game, which could generate huge revenues. Cricket boards became rich by selling television rights to television companies.

 

Television channels made money by selling television spots to companies who were happy to pay large sums of money to air commercials for their products to cricket�s captive television audience.

 

Continuous television coverage made cricketers celebrities who, besides being paid better by their cricket boards, now made even 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. It also broadened cricket�s social base. Children who had never previously had the chance to watch international cricket because they lived outside the big cities, where top-level cricket was played, could now watch and learn by imitating their heroes. The technology of satellite television and the worldwide reach of multi-national television companies created a global market for cricket.

 

Read More: The Historical Development of Cricket as a Game in England - Class 9