Oct 5, 2009

One Day Cricket, One Day!

If you ask me what i love the most about One-Day cricket, i would say the first and the last 10 overs. Basically a the subset of One-Day cricket, those 20 overs. When you remove the in between 30 (sorry@Rahul Dravid), there's your product: T-20 format.

Where else do you get to see funny shots, huge run rates, loads of sixes and cheerleaders!. It's an energetic party. When it started, some feared that One-Day cricket will have to fight for food. Within a few years, T-20 has beaten One-Day format inside-out, putting up a BIG question on its survival. Caught and Bowled!

What holds up a certain format of the game? The fundamental question here is what exactly does Cricket offers us. The classic form and the evolved forms have offered us a display of technique and speed. Test format predominantly offered us technique and class. One-Day offered us a relatively higher fraction of speed, yet giving technique due importance. Now we have T-20, which is predominantly speed.

When One-Day cricket started, some feared that it will eat up the Test form. It couldn't, because Test is a sheer display of what's the heart of Cricket, the technique. Do I want to see some classy centuries and consistent A grade bowling? Yes I do. Now, we have the sheer display of speed in our hands, the T-20 format. Do I want to see nail biting and high paced cricket? Yes I do.

Sachin recently said that we need to protect the One-Day format. He suggested to split the 50 overs in to 2 innings of 25 overs each, where each team plays its innings alternately. He explained why the splitting was important but did not stress on why to save the format? ... fear of losing all the records?

Do I need a "Test T-25"? Not sure.


3 Comments:

Kshitij KK Khurana said...

O no! Do I see another anti Sachin in you? Anyways, there is no fear of losing records... the records of times where 60 over matches were played...8 balls bowled in an over - all, still remain.

I observed this - BIG fans of the game enjoy all three formats. They love the tests equally.

New fans enjoy t20...it's quick and fun. Moreover, t20s attract women too.

ODIs has a mix kind of following... small fans like to keep a track of ODIs...new fans might care about the scoeline... big fans watch it.

Basically... bottom line is...people like me watch cricket whichever form it may appear in.

You excited for champion's league? I just purchased tickets for friday's matches...at ferozshah kotla... tickets are easily available...is there less following for it?

Vinay Sharma said...

.. the BIG question is what will hold up the One-Day cricket? .. as a fan i know even i will watch the One- Dayers. The question is that if I get enough Tests and T-20s, do i still ask for One-Dayers? ..

Of course i am no anti-Sachin! .. i was just putting across a point of view ...

.. records don't mean anything if they don't flash around and get discussed ..

Vinay Sharma said...

nahh .. not so excited about Champion's league .. but will catch a match live in Mumbai for sure :) ..