Truth be told, compared to other sports such as soccer, basketball or baseball, cricketers are actually rather lowly paid. Until the advent of the Indian Premier League that was even more so. There is only now begun to be a modicum of parity between cricket and other sports. And let us not kid ourselves that cricket was somehow above such earthly, such base material considerations.

Even during times of the great W G Grace, when cricketers were seen as gentlemen and as amateurs of the game, nothing as ignoble and sordid as a ‘professional’, Grace was very well paid for playing and that payment was collected diligently by him.   

Many years later, Kerry Packer was seen as the ‘corrupter’ of fine and gracious game, with his ODIs (one day matches) and ‘big’ (for the time) prize money. He was seen as someone leading the traditional 5 day game and the hitherto meagerly paid players ‘astray’ in some way by creating a new TV friendly form of the game. What actually resulted from the Kerry Packer adventure was that cricketers were thereafter better paid for their pains and became more visible and popular players of the game.

Now with the breaking of the $8 billion Stanford Scandal, the scepter of money as being the corrupter of cricket is once again rearing its hoary head. The fact of the fraud notwithstanding why would anyone grudge cricket players being paid big money for playing a game that each one of us admittedly enjoys and is riveted by. Why is it that only cricketers are frowned upon for being paid the big bucks in sports? When we hear about football stars being bought and sold for astronomical sums we simply round our eyes in amazement, why the disapproval for the cricketers then?

And let it not be forgotten, the cricketers carry as much if not more pressure than their counterparts in other games. On cricketers’ shoulders rest the weight of expectation of one billion cricket mad Indians who look upon their cricketers as gods and decry them as devils when they fail to perform in a super human manner.

We have to change our perception to include international cricket in the group of professional spectator sports where players are paid according to their ability and their star power.  Cricket is a game of money like any other; whether one likes it or not.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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