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| Two-minute noodles or a full meal? |
| Thursday July 9, 2009 , New Delhi |
| I have hardly been watching cricket for the last two weeks. Blame it partially on overkill of T20 with the IPL and the ICC T20 World Cup. The India-West India ODI series was a little bit of a washout for me. And I am not referring to the rains and thunderstorms that the players had to brave! I have been reading a little bit about cricket, though. I had time to read the Colin Cowdrey Memorial Lecture delivered by the former Aussie wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist late last month. Gilchrist tried to get the attention of administrators towards some of the key issues that the cricket world is faced with. For those uninitiated with cricket history, Colin Cowdrey was a former English captain, the first in history to play 100 Test matches and ended his cricket career in the mid 1970s. He was known as a gritty batsman who later went on to become a successful thinker for the game, who helped modernise the game. So, it was interesting that Gilchrist, whose aggressive stroke play had its small role to play in rising popularity of the one day games earlier and now T20 games, should be talking about the 'threat' that T20 poses for ODIs and Test cricket. "I think most of us would agree that the 50-over game is slowly starting to feel the pinch. Diminishing crowds, diminishing interest in many countries and as a result diminishing financial returns for the game. Much the same thing could also be said about Test cricket - although I believe that trend began further back in time. At the same time, the last five years has seen the emergence of Twenty20 cricket. From its humble origins in 2003, it has rapidly developed into a trans-world game, particularly on the back of the highly successful Indian Premier League. "So, does 20-over cricket have anything else to offer the game, other than being the cash cow for cricket over the next few years? I think it does," the star Aussie wicketkeeper said. The 'threat' is quite real. Sunil Gavaskar, the first man to cross 10,000 runs in Test cricket, said recently that players should look at playing for the country, rather than focus on their IPL career. The popularity of T20 has not escaped the attention of International Cricket Council (ICC) President David Morgan. He said in during an interview that four-day test matches were being considered. ICC is also considering day-night cricket, which will necessitate the use of coloured balls. He was quoted as saying that "it would be a pity if Test match cricket - day-night - had to be played with a white ball and therefore coloured clothing". Cricketers, administrators, fans, viewers and, most importantly, youngsters, who will become the stars of tomorrow, seem to have been bitten by the T20 bug. Twenty over a side has also caught the attention of companies because it attracts the youth, who they want their brands to reach out to. Television companies can market these packages more easily than the effort it takes to market a test match. Remember the dashing Imran Khan when Kerry Packer launched the World Series Cricket, with coloured clothing, white balls and day night matches - all for the first time in the game? Khan's tee-shirt said Big Boys Play at Night - something that became the marketing man's delight during the initial years. I have never seen any of the WSC matches but have read a lot about them and how it had then caught the imagination of everyone. So, it had started in Australia over 30 years ago as a 50-over a side game. The manner in which T20 has taken India by storm, it is now surely home to the 20-over a side game. For someone who tracks business and stock markets, here's an analogy. During the internet boom of the late 1990s, there were several companies which received mouthwatering valuations just because they had an idea. Surely, T20 is more than an idea but it has caught the imagination in a manner that reminds me of the dotcom boom. So, what happened of nearly 90 per cent of those companies? Well, the dotcoms merged with brick and mortar old economy businesses and, over the last 10 years, it is click and mortar that has survived. Tennis has also changed with time with the introduction of different surfaces. The Rebound Ace surface at the Australian Open, grass at Wimbledon, clay at the French Open and DecoSurf at the US Open test the all round skill of the players. (Remember Ivan Lendl in the 1980s saying 'Grass is for cows'?) So, a player who can adapt in Test cricket, ODIs and T20 will be the real champion. I suspect there certainly is a lesson to be learnt for cricket administrators from that. The International Cricket Council (ICC) has initiated steps to convert cricket into an Olympic sport. The wheel has, perhaps, come full circle. What a coincidence since cricket was an Olympic sport in the 1900 Olympic games! I am no historian, nor do I claim to be an expert. What I know for sure is that I will always love to watch Test matches; the test of character and skill will always be seen in test matches. For someone who has spent hours watching youngsters play at Shivaji Park and the Cricket Club of India ground, I will always prefer to watch a test match for the battle between the bat and ball. T20 is like two-minute noodles. I would rather have the full meal, as long as it is available. So, every time a batsman in white clothing put his left foot forward, and plays the correct old-fashioned forward defensive stroke to a fast bowler raring to go. Or smothering the turn of a spinner getting good purchase from the track. That will always have my attention. My applause too. |
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Ashutosh Sinha is a business journalist, whose day job involves tracking the stock markets. He enjoys juggling with the numbers at the stock market and ones from the cricket field. Ashutosh believes that the job of Sunil Gavaskar has been one of the most difficult in cricket history and that the West Indian pace battery of the 1970s was the best ever bowling attack. His religion is cricket. 
