Must we slay the golden geese?

So the debate over player burn-out continues, fueled by the latest comments from Shewag today. This is getting interesting - Australians were at it for quite some time, so were England and Pakistan players, and now joined publicly by Indians. Gavaskar, for all his wisdom, recently stirred up some unwelcome emotion by making that corny remark about cricketers not showcasing 365-day commitment. Do not get me wrong - I am with the people who demands action in return for parting with substantial chunks of their poor middle class paycheck just to catch a glimpse of their heroes, besides pampering them with cult-like devotion. But I believe our interest is better served if a cricketer's playing career is prolonged - who wouldn't enjoy watching Tendulkar swing away for another few years! And to do that, instead of killing the golden geese now, it makes sense to allow them enough rest in between games to avoid potential burn-out.

Let us bring up some numbers. Gavaskar, during his 16-yr international career, played 125 Tests and 108 ODIs - that is one day out in the field for a week in between (this assumes all Tests ran the full course of 5 days). Tendulkar, by comparison, over the same period played 130 Tests and 350 ODIs - each day of play with 5 days in between. The difference, while considerable in statistical terms (who wouldn't like an extra 2-day rest!), does not quite cause eyebrows to shoot up, right? Now factor in the days of warm-up matches to recondition players to new place, net practice before the actual contest, and the travel before and after every match - cricketers today literally live out of suitcases. But then, of course, players in Gavaskar era did not earn the kind of money they do now.

I guess to many the equation is simple - divide the annual earning by the days of play in that year, and this number should stay within similar range across years (after adjusting for inflation). So, for example, if you earn twice today, you should put in twice as many days on the ground. Two factors have complicated this equation over the 90's decade. First, BCCI has become the richest body in world cricket (through lucrative sponsorship and telecasting deals with big industries), resulting in vastly inflated match fees of the contracted players. Second, the players themselves make unprecedented money through corporate endorsements (a trend started with none other than the brand "Tendulkar" himself). I must add, however, that it was Gavaskar's team that, led by Kapil Dev, brought home the 1983 World Cup, which overnight made cricket the prima donna of Indian sport and turned industries' attention to it in the first place. (I was a slip of a young lad that time, and still vividly remember the fireworks lighting up the night sky as a beaming Kapil held aloft the Prudential Cup at Lords.)

So, we cannot really expect players to put in that many days each year in the field to justify their current income, can we? Or, if one wants to be methodical, why not add up all the days a player actually spends to earn his money - that should include travel times plus practice sessions and matches plus press appearances and interviews, and add to that the days of rehearsals and shootings to appear in a TV commercial. Anyway, this post has gone on far too long already, I must sign off now. To conclude, I'll happily pay to watch a Tendulkar, a Shewag, an Afridi, or a Shoaib, in full glory fewer days a year but over many years. And I believe many will agree.