Now it's catch TWENTY - 20

The TVC’s also have captured the ICC slogan of “Beyond the ICC world” and go into countries like Brazil, Japan, China, and more over to the United States of America and Canada – in short to the commercial hubs of the World

Have you seen a well attired couple waltzing across the floor of the hall in a butterfly like rhythm – in cricketing parlance I put it down to Test cricket – it’s traditional, graceful and yet more, very demanding. Then you suddenly switch to samba or the rumba and that can be a bit of a body jarring exercise and yet it can not get in to the same plateau as Test cricket – and the authorities have christened it as One Day International Cricket. Then we see a U-turn and a grovelling lot dancing on the floor to some hip-hop tunes if there is a song or a tune in it – we can surely put it down to the new-craze Twenty-20 cricket which one day would eat up the rest of this beautiful team sport and give it a very degenerating outlook.

Then there is another matter of fact that should be discussed. As it is, for the Television conglomerates who control this game there would be logistical problems. But, do you know of the great team sports that has engulfed this earth – like Football, Rugby etc, they do have their own miniature versions, but, when it comes to the World Cup, they always have their full game on show, because only at that point, a team or an individual player can convert his real inherent skills into a dazzling show and exhibit it to the world, of what he or they are made of. Ironically in cricket always it is the other way around. While the real thing of Test Cricket languishes only as a statistical genius, the ODI has taken the pride of place and crowned itself as the imposter prince who takes the game to the Cricket World Cup and the Twenty-20 cricket World Cup is not very far away. The former South African speedster Fannie de Villiers says that he thinks that this a very good thing that has happened to the game of cricket.

Food for thought. The other day I was reading some ominous words spelled out by the Sri Lanka Cricket captain Mahela Jayawardena about the game of twenty-20 cricket. He warned the ICC about how the twenty-20 cricket could turn into a bowler’s grave yard – or just a thrashing ground. Yet the world authorities are determined to take this version forward, because it is the direction that the TV conglomerates want the game to take and that is the commodity that they could sell to the thousands of advertisers across the globe. The TVC’s also have captured the ICC slogan of “Beyond the ICC world” and go into countries like Brazil, Japan, China, and more over to the United States of America and Canada – in short to the commercial hubs of the World.

The gentry of these countries have inculcated a regime where a game should last for so many hours and no more and they do not have the patience to sit and gaze at a five day Test match. What they need over at that end is a slap-bang short version.
Over the generations we have seen the loss of the most basic stroke to cricket – the forward defence. When we were young what was thought by our masters was first learn to play the forward defence and then you could master the other strokes with ease. But, today in an ODI a batsman uses the forward defence only as a last resort. At the same time, non conventional strokes like the reverse sweep and the lofted chip drive have become very common place in the ODI version of the game where maybe a half a century ago strokes of that nature would have been scoffed upon.

I agree one must travel with the wind and try to germinate from where ever you land at. But, so far all the greats in cricket who have brought this game to the game that it is have derived their fame from the longer version of the game. Greats of cricket like Bradman, Tendulkar, Aravinda de Silva, Sunil Gavaskar, Brian Lara, Kapil Dev, Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan, Glenn McGrath, Wasim Akram, Chaminda Vaas (all spelled their arrival through Test Cricket). Yet in ODI cricket it has been only Sanath Jayasuriya, Shahid Afridi and Mahendra Sing Dhoni have come out as true champions of that version of the game.

Could you please be good enough to tell me through the limited overs version of the game would we have seen the birth of cricketers in the calibre of Warne, Murali or McGrath?, Showing their wily artistry in bowling with a sheer cunning skill.

Cricket is predominantly a batsman’s game. The rules, the laws and most of the other allied matters pertaining to playing the game have been drawn up in favour of the batsmen and the game has developed within that cocoon. Yet it had left room for the great bowlers down the years to develop and rattle the pampered lot of batsmen from time to time.

With the advent of limited overs cricket the skill levels of bowlers eroded a little more with laws like the 30-yard rule, fielding restrictions and power-play etc etc. But, yet no restrictions have been brought upon the batsmen.

Now to make twenty-20 game more attractive to the more baseball savvy gentry around the world more curtailments may be brought upon by the cricketing authorities under pressure from the TVC’s and make it the game most understandable to the gentry of the commercial hubs of the World.

Then with more and more of limited overs games being organised for the game what will get pushed out? It will be the traditional game of Test Cricket that will be at the receiving end. Why oh! Why? What wrong has that version of the game done?