WTC final: An India win could make cricket go 'retro' all over again

Every format cricket tried to embrace began doing well once India succeeded in it.

1983: The Kapil Dev-led Indian team wins the 50-over World Cup and the format takes off like never before; 2007: The MS Dhoni-led Indian team wins the T20 World Cup and the format erases all doubts about its relevance and overtakes the 50-over game.

2023: Only by this logic, should the Rohit Sharma-led Indian team win the World Test Championship, the game’s oldest and still the best format by a mile could come back to retain all the relevance it needs.

An India win could help Test cricket get on the ‘retro’ mode and make it all look fashionable across ages and genders yet again.

That’s only because of what India brings to the game of cricket – mass following like no other country brings to any other team sport anywhere in the world.

Let’s quickly get done with the routine numbers that keep pouring out from time to time: 1. India alone contributes more than 85 percent of the game’s revenues; 2. It contributes more than 75 percent of the eyeballs the game generates; 3. The popularity of the Indian team ensures that the game gets its share of top sponsorships globally in ICC events; 4. The BCCI – the world’s richest cricket board and one of the wealthiest sports federations anywhere – also runs one of the world’s most followed sports leagues.

These numbers are huge and when numbers of such magnitude get behind a property, eyeballs are bound to increase.

It is in line with this approach that India’s win at the WTC final could do wonders for the format as it straddles between the glory of the past, the dwindling popularity in the present and an uncertain future.

For a sport to survive in today’s world, the economics of the said sport has to prosper. Football’s rise through the 70s and 80s in Europe, as the continent progressed and prospered, did much for the sport, leading to the sprouting of successful leagues, properties such as the Euro, the push and support that FIFA needed and more.

Australia and New Zealand could do the same to rugby, the US to American football, baseball and basketball, Canada to ice hockey and so on. On the same lines, cricket benefitted from the following that India brought to the table and every format cricket tried to embrace began doing well once India succeeded in it.

While the very essence of the WTC final should be based on the premise of the better team winning the contest, India’s win could alternately have a Bigger Picture waiting to unfold.