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....
2 comments:
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?!
I 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.
I'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.....
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