After a truly brilliant Test match in New Zealand last week, Sambit Bal has talked up Test cricket. The only thing I'd question is whether cricket really can make room for all 3 forms long-term....I wonder if ultimately the 50 over format needs to go. Time will tell....30 November 2009
Tests still best, by a distance
After a truly brilliant Test match in New Zealand last week, Sambit Bal has talked up Test cricket. The only thing I'd question is whether cricket really can make room for all 3 forms long-term....I wonder if ultimately the 50 over format needs to go. Time will tell....
The 50 over format is my least favourite form of the game at the moment, mostly because the overs between, say, 20-40 are often completely soporific. If this form is to survive at all, I think an, at least partial, re-think of the rules is needed, in particular concerning the 'down leg-side, no ball' situation (especially daft when applied to spinners). Maybe relax the restrictions on the bowlers completely and give the batting side two power plays instead?!
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether there is necessarily too much cricket at the moment. I think some of the ODI series are too long (the seven match post-Ashes series being a case in point), but mostly: aren't there rather too many, too similar trophies? Turn around and there is another World Cup or some such is staring you in the face: why precisely have both an ODI World Cup AND an ODI Champions League*? Also, it's starting to feel like there's a Twenty20 World Cup on every second week.
That said, I watched a bit of the Twenty20 Champions Whatever and really enjoyed watching clubs competing on an international level. (Obviously, not, perhaps, as much as I enjoyed the NSW Baby Blues winning the thing, but still ...) Perhaps this kind of international club competition would be a way for one-dayers to survive? A remodel of the ICC ODI Champions Trophy into an international competition for clubs?! I mean, soccer seems to have umpteen various trophies, cups and whatnots and I don't think I've ever heard anybody agonizing over whether there is 'too much soccer played'† - but most of these trophies are 'club trophies', not 'national team ones'.
* Incidentally, that Daniel Vettori wasn't made Man of the Tournament in the recent ICC Champions Trophy was a bloody disgrace.
† To me, any soccer played at all is too much. Gazillions of mislead and delusional people disagree. Poor bastards! One can only pity and humour them.
I certainly can't understand why they've felt the need to drag out the current ODI series between SA and England for so long. 5 matches needs 10 or 12 days doesn't it (max)? I gather they've been trying to schedule 2 a week on Fridays and Sundays as that's when they're likely to draw the biggest crowds at the ground and on TV, but it still leaves a very long gap Sunday-Friday.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the players would have preferred to spend 2 more weeks with their families and played the Twenty20 and ODIs in a far more condensed period of time.....