Quote:
> It seems that even in England, T20 cricket is becoming the ***
> form of the game. It has already assumed that role in India. Surely,
> Test cricket will decline in quality over the years, since young
> players will be slower to develop the mental skills necessary to
> perform in the longer format.
If they develop those skills at all. I suspect that we have two forms
of the game that call for skills that are somewhat in opposition. The
kinds of batting skills, techniques and temperaments that are valued
in T20 may well be seen as deficiencies in Test batting. Ditto
bowling. The ability to bowl restrictively and let the batsman score
no more than a single run off a delivery (and go for 7 or less in an
over) may be of great value in T20. In Test Cricket it is likely to
result in a bowling side that will struggle to get 20 batsmen out even
on a wicket that offers some help to the bowlers (let alone the shirt
front featherbeds that are frequently on offer). Fielding in Tests may
be the one area which may benefit thanks to T20.
I wonder if the advent of ODIs and the rapid gains that they made in
popularity improved Test Cricket. Did batting or Bowling become better
in Tests as a result of ODI's? Certain kinds of players and playing
styles I fear are becoming scarcer. Let us start with style and grace
in batting. By the 90's and certainly in this decade, we seem to see
far fewer batsmen of the Kalicharan, Gomes, Hughes, Vaughn, Inzy,
Vishy, Azhar, Gower caliber. There are far fewer technicians too -
very few batsmen in the mold of Dravid, Boycott and Gavaskar. The
likes of Hayden, Gilchrist, Sehwag, Afridi are the successes of this
era. Lara, SRT and Ponting are the rare exceptions that play well in
both forms of the game. In Bowling too some of the 'finer' forms of
bowling are on the wane. We seem to be witnessing the last of the men
of guile in our times - Warne and Murali. Then there is swing bowling.
There are very few genuine swing bowlers - the likes of Wasim,
Marshall - left in the game now. May be it's the global warming. But
swing seems to be waning and increasingly pace and seam bowling are
the *** modes of quick bowling.
I suspect some of the above has to do with ODIs. And some other trends
are explained by the changed nature of the game - the need to please a
generation of TV viewers that are impatient with glances and square
drives and want the ball to be airborne early and frequently. Then
there is the economic phenomenon of rapidly middle classing India. The
new lower and mid middle classes - their ranks swell by the millions
each year - are young and did not come of Cricketing age in an earlier
era. The first Cricket that they watch is the Cricket of the age of
Sehwag. When you are raised on a diet of watching Sehwag launch a
delivery outside the off stump aerially over the point boundary for a
Six or Yuvraj dismantling Broad, the site of a Vaughn or VVSL lean
into a cover drive can be rather boring. I can't see a lot of younger
folks or the new Cricketing masses get e***d about a battle between
Alvin Kalicaran and Prsanna where after an exquisite duel lasting 10
overs ... nothing really happens (AIK is not out, Prasanna has beaten
the bat often but that's about it). Perhaps those contests were meant
for a more unhurried time when only birds twittered.
So some combination of all these factors have surely changed the face
of Test Cricket (the usual disclaimer - no claim is made that one form
of Cricket is superior to another, or that the burgeoning middle class
in India is inferior in any manner - I am merely commenting on what I
see as certain styles of play becoming scarcer. Cricketing aesthetics
like feminine beauty are in the eye of the beholder).
I suspect that in the next 5 years or so, Test Cricket will be deeply
impacted by T20, TV, and the demographics of Asia. We will be able to
watch T20's in iPad and who knows the rules of T20's might even be
modified to fit the 9 inch screen.
Suresh
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