Qamar Ahmed: Time for changes in one-day cricket recipe (4 May 1998)

Monday, May 04, 1998

Time for changes in one-day cricket recipe

By Qamar Ahmed

London: Limited over one-day matches which started as a fun game to entertain the crowd is now the biggest money spinner. It has over the years in fact boosted the dwindling image of cricket and its finances.

People love to watch this brand of cricket fully aware that at least at the end of the day they would have a winner and a loser. The connoisseurs will however disagree and I will not blame them for that. The genuine game of course is Test cricket and those who know and love this game of glorious uncertainties subscribe to this view.

The crash-bang-wallop brand of cricket that we now experience in one-day internationals is however here to stay and its popularity will continue for as long as its followers are able to digest it. But for how long they will be able to do that is the question? The most important and a rather worrying aspect of this brand of cricket however is that it has started to become too type-cast, and that is true of most of the matches played. If we look at the recent spate of one-day international matches we would discover that a great majority of limited over games end up as a one-sided affair and very rarely one experiences close or exciting finishes. Something like 10 runs to get and 6 balls to go on with the last pair in, 12 runs required in 4 balls. Once the team batting first makes over 240 odd runs, the other team while chasing runs lose five wickets for say 90 runs, the outcome becomes ominous.

Also in a day and night game if you happen to take time off after your office hours and enter the stadium you may only see one side batting and one side bowling. So if you want to see your favourite batsman batting or bowling, there is a big chance that you may not be able to, because one innings is already finished by the time you have come to the ground, I suppose that is what is to be looked at by the ICC and the cricket authorities of the world. Recent matches in the Triangular Series in South Africa were a glaring example of the one-sidedness of the matches. In one game at Bloemfontein Sri Lanka were bowled out for 105 in the 36th over ad South Africa got to the target in the 26th. The pubic were short changed and deprived of a full day's play. To please them a double-wicket match was played and that was farcical. Same was the case in other matches including the final in which South Africa reached the target in a canter against Pakistan without much fuss.

I suppose people will eventually get fed up with that after a while. In fact already the crowds are thinning at one-day games because of that. Sharjah cricket is a sort of non-event because of that. Only if Pakistan plays India the ground is full or else it is only you and the two teams in the ground. The game has got to be changed to make it more interesting and exciting. I suppose a two innings one-day match of 25 overs in each innings could make this brand of cricket more exciting. People who are unable to make it to the ground in time because of their business commitments may thus be able to watch both the teams batting and bowling and also the team batting last could be absolutely entertaining for the crowd as would be the teams batting first. From the crowd point of view it could be much more absorbing, no matter who is playing. Every bowler will have to bowl five overs in the 25 overs match and no second spell for any bowler. The present practice of bowling their important bowlers in one last burst to stop the run chase should be scrapped. I am sure then most of the people who like the one-day games will get the type of excitement that they want from this brand of cricket.

Source:: Dawn (https://dawn.com/)