Cricket, the game of uncertainty, the game where change in wind/temperature/humidity/cloud cover can have big impact on result, the game we all love. It’s a game of strategy and planning, endurance, ability to handle pressure, ability to stay on crease for as long as possible are cheered by fans all over the world.
When Sunil Gavaskar visited out campus last year, I had one question for him, the question that has been bugging me since the arrival of T20 cricket.
Q: Is 20-twenty cricket ruining test/one day cricket? (Veetrag)
SG: No, actually it helps in improvement. The same things were said when One day cricket came into picture, people used to say that no one with watch test matches. But nothing like this happened, the playing style of crickets changed and it helped Tests. Previously test matches were mostly draws now you don’t see that many draws and most of the draws are result of bad weather. Scoring rates have changed; batsmen have started taking more risks.
Same will happen to ODIs too; now ODIs are too predictable. We know batsmen will come and hit for first 20 overs and then last 10 overs, I hope with 20-twenty we will see a change in style of playing and that would reflect someday in ODIs too.
Only concern I had was, will T20 cricket turn the classy game into ‘power game’, where to be batsmen you should have a minimum height of 6ft 2 , have a build like a bull and you should be able to pick up the ball as soon it hits the pitch and slog it into the space. T20 is such a shorter version of game that terms like cracking of pitch and reverse swing are unheard of, where the class of batsmen is measured by the number of meters ball covered in air, where the classy batsmen like Rahul Dravid and VVS Lakshman are considered as boring and senseless hitting by Ravindu Jadeja is considered great action.
Clear evidences of viewers discontent with slow scoring rate were visible during first test match at Chennai between India and SA, where Rahul Dravid’s 111 in 396 balls was considered painfully slow and commentators even went ahead to say that Dravid does not want India to win. But if we take Dravid out of that score board (along with the balls he played) it will not take rocket science to figure out that instead of a draw game we could have lost that test.
I was not much worried as T20 was not catching up, but with IPL the complete scenario is changed. I don’t care about the money that has been pumped in or the impact caused by cheerleaders, I don’t care if Chennai Super Knights win or Kolkata King Riders take the championship, I just want nice cricket action, and that should have no impact on Test/One day cricket. I guess the scene is changing now, T20 cricket has taken over and speculation of new tournaments like EPL and PCL are indication that test cricket will be pushed aside someday. Only hope that I have is, people will get bored of these run feasts and will come back to classy cricket.
