Test Matches dwindling - Why the fuss?

Have not read through the entire blog to know where I stand. Here it goes...

I think cricket is and has been moving in the right direction and I would not change anything even if it means that test cricket becomes obsolete. I am trying to reason why I am opinionated.

The format is too long for 5 days (working days!!! included) 5* 8 = 40 hours. So, who do you think in their right mind would follow all the test matches completely? In my notion, jobless people do like Nadesh & Mayil. Remember, if following the scores over the internet was the yardstick, i would not agree that this format is dwindling in the first place.

The veterans and old guns who have played test cricket happen to believe that their careers would be a big fat joke if the format is not in favor anymore. You will see that they are the people lobbying for test cricket. The young guns have to follow suit.

Soccer, Tennis, F1, Olympic and other such short events capture the imagination of people because it is short and refreshing. At least they are not begging for people to follow the game for the heck of it. Test cricket made sense in earlier decades until say 80's because people had a lot of time at their disposal. It would have been like the derbys where the women folk, countess and queens could show off their wardrobe which otherwise could go unnoticed.

In its original form test cricket was really boring and not result oriented. It was since the advent of ODI, people started talking about sporting declarations and result oriented test cricket. ICC could not even manage to hold a world event for test matches for above stated reasons. It is for the same reason it is not even included in the Olympics.

It is a very ruthless world and the sport would have been kicked out had it failed to adapt and improvise. One day and T20 are steps in the right direction, had it not been for these formats, cricket would have long been a sport which would have been claimed to be played by primitive men who had no responsibilities. It would have been played in video tapes across museums and not in cricket grounds.

Embrace the change. Believe me it's been a long time coming.

P.S: I'm posting this on behalf of my best pal Manu Aasish.

Let me introduce him first. He is one big encyclopedia. You give him a word, he will talk about it for 1 hour non-stop. You give him a topic for debate, i bet, you will run away halfway with blood in your ears. Yes, U got it right. He is so fluent in English that he uses all bad words available. He loves doing it with opposite gender and hence being awarded the prestigious "The Womanizer" by our juniors during college farewell.

Welcome on-board buddy.. Your contribution is much needed !!!

2009 - yet another 2005?

Not much work these days at office.. what i'm doing right now was a distant dream some 6 months back.. Yup you guessed it right - drafting a blog while at work.

It's been quite boring all day so far at work but not so for the English supporters. Memorable day for all of 'em. Freddie Flintoff is the man for the day. Go to London now. You will get to know how much does an ASHES test victory means to them. I knew it. A month back when i was there, there was no talk about World T20. Its all Ashes. And this victory came from Lord's - which ended 75 year drought - is like icing in the cake.

After a 'Ordinary' test at Cardiff, England arrived at Lord's with a major injury - Freddie's test retirement. Punter added insult to injury by terming it "Circus". As Warne & Hussey predicted, it spurred Fred, who indeed delivered the killer punch to knock down the aussies on the final day. Truly inspirational spell of fast bowling. Atherton's question summed it up during post match presentation.

Atherton : Was there any chance Strauss could get the ball out of your hand this morning?
Fred : "Mate, there was no chance."

I'm thinking about how crucial was Strauss's innings of 161 on a bowling friendly seeming conditions? Invaluable. He setup the match for the rest and i believe he deserves to get great applause. It was hugely disappointing to see KP's dodgy 2nd innings largely marred by his achilles problem. Hope he gets fit and firing at Birmingham.

And Bopara - hard to understand how good he is at international level. Three back to back ducks against Srilanka & three back to back hundreds against West Indies prior to this series and nothing significant in this series so far. It convinced me to agree on Warne's comments "he's too much style, not enough substance, and sure enough, his Test record is beginning to look alarmingly skew-whiff". I won't be surprised if Bell replaces him at Birmingham and may be Harmison for Onions.

Plenty of headaches for Ricky though. Mitch arrived as spearhead and i'm sure he will be in fear now. They might be tempted to avail Stuart Clark's service. Performance wise johnson needs to give way. But reputation wise, i feel sorry for Siddle who might lose the battle.

Its too early to say the outcome of the series. But mouthwatering contest ahead in the weeks to come.

Sunil still Sunny at 60.

Sunil Gavaskar, one of the best cricketers to have lived in India, turned 60 today. If you ask me whether I have watched Sunny play, it is a plain no. I have never seen him play, hence the question arises how did I call him great.

One reason is his stats speak a lot. Though it is true that Stats don't convey a lot about the quality of cricket, I believe they are an important parameter to gauge an era which didn't have television coverage as these days.

There are two things which fascinates me about Gavaskar
1. The 774 runs (in 4 tests avg 154.80) he scored in his debut series at Caribbean in 1970 - 71
Though the Windies pace attack was at the foothills of ascent in the series, it cannot be treated with disdain as it had Boyce and Sobers in it. Any player scoring at such a frenetic pace in his first series is certainly special and Gavaskar illustrated it.

2. The next thing which comes to my mind is the 36* he scored in India's first World Cup ODI match. For an opener to carry the bat thru 60 overs and score just 36 is something which we cannot even dream now.
Even he wants to correct it if gets a time machine it seems.

Scoring 10,000 runs in Test cricket in an era which was not competitive as now must have required enormous amount of temperament, technique and concentration. And we need to agree that he scored them with elegance.

One thing beautiful about Gavaskar is that he never afraid to speak out against England and Australia dictating terms in the world of Cricket. Things have changed a lot these days, with India emerging a power because of the money it brings into the game, would be happy if he criticises that also.

And certainly he is one of my favorite commentators (Don't think Nadesh likes him much), he doesn't seem old enough to be 60 for me. Gavaskar is still Sunny at 60.

PS : Wrote this post on Sunny's birthday but forgot to publish it :(