The Empty Ranji Ground and Cricket's Real Audit

It was a cold January afternoon in 2026 at the Garware Pavilion in Wankhede. On the third day, at tea, I counted the crowd—1,847 people. Ranji final, Mumbai versus Bengal, four days, and the city had quietly stopped noticing. Wasim Jaffer batted an entire session without a fielder moving; Amol Muzumdar argued with himself between deliveries. I filed 900 words that mentioned the score twice. My editor ran it on page 22 and told me it was the best thing I had written. That's when I understood—empty seats don't lie. They tell you what the ecosystem actually values.

This insight is even more relevant today, in 2026. When the entire focus of cricket is on auction purses, broadcast rights bids, and social media noise, the domestic game's auditorium is quietly shrinking. The IPL did not damage Test cricket—that's now clear from the data. But it has hollowed out the audience-based economy of domestic cricket. Ranji knockouts are now played at neutral venues, where local connection is zero. The Mumbai cricket lover would rather watch a foreign league on TV than watch Jaffer bat. This is not audience apathy; it's product failure.

In my three decades of experience, from broadcast rooms to rights deals, I have seen how 'star-worship' and 'milestone-obsession' have suppressed the real stories. When Sachin Tendulkar was scoring his hundredth hundred, the biggest story of that match was how the opposition bowlers tried to trap him by bowling outside the cover—but the camera stayed on the batsman. The director's choice wrote history. I rewind the tape until the crowd disappears—and then the truth emerges.

The real problem with domestic cricket is that its audience was never created when it was relevant. In the 1990s, when cricket's television expansion happened, Ranji matches were barely broadcast. Doordarshan had limited resources, and private channels prioritized international cricket. Result: no 'tape library' for domestic cricket was ever built. While county cricket had a weekly broadcast culture in England, it never developed in India. So when the IPL arrived in 2026, it didn't capture empty space—it created a market that didn't exist before. But it also stopped the potential audience base for domestic cricket from developing.

The numbers confirm this. In the 2026-20 Ranji season, the last full season before Covid, the average accredited attendance per match was around 2,500. The 1,847 I counted in 2026 was for the third day of the final. So in 12 years, there was only marginal improvement, which was still insufficient. In 2026-24, when crowds returned to stadiums, the Ranji final had no more than 5,000 people—while an ordinary IPL league match in the same period has over 25,000. This comparison is not just about numbers; it shows where cricket's 'premium' audience is investing.

The contrarian angle is that women's cricket's 'sudden' boom is also the same story of empty seats. The crowd that thronged DY Patil Stadium during the 2026 Women's World Cup was actually growing since 2026—but no one counted it. When I look at the audience for the 2026 Women's T20 Challenge compared to the 2026 edition, the growth is clear. But the media presented it as a 'sudden boom' because it never recorded the empty stands of 2026. In my tape archive, I have a recording of a 2026 domestic women's match with fewer than 300 people—but that same match had an innings by Harmanpreet Kaur that is far more powerful than anything in today's highlight reels. The problem was not the audience, but our gaze.

This doesn't mean the IPL is bad. It gave players financial security, raised fitness and fielding standards, and established cricket as entertainment. But it's also true that the IPL has filled cricket's calendar in such a way that there is no attention left for domestic tournaments—not from players, not from audiences, and not from broadcasters. Ranji Trophy has now become a 'developmental product' watched only by scouts and selectors. Whereas this is actually where cricket's heart beats—without cameras, without DRS, without cheerleaders. Here a batsman plays knowing his career is on the line with the next ball, and no one is watching. That is cricket's purest emotion.

In my experience, the biggest threat is 'milestone-obsession'. Whenever a batsman scores his hundredth hundred, the entire broadcast machinery focuses on that. But the real significance of that innings lies in the context no one shows—like how the team's run rate was affected, or how the opposing captain changed his bowling to stop that batsman. I have been present on many such occasions where the camera was on the star, but the real story was with the player standing at the non-striker's end, mentally preparing for his next innings. Rewind the tape, and you'll find that the biggest moments are often the ones the broadcast cut away from.

The way forward is clear. If Indian cricket is to survive at the domestic level, it must package Ranji and other domestic tournaments the way the IPL was packaged—not just for scouting. Connect local teams to their cities, broadcast matches live in prime time, and tell the stories of struggling players in commentary. Until a domestic cricket audience is created, it will remain just a farmhouse from which players are prepared for the IPL. But the question is: do we want to build a cricket ecosystem where only those who are already stars are watched? Or will we dare to fill those empty seats that tell us where the real game is? Mumbai's winter taught me to trust the empty seats—because they speak the truth.