Monday, May 01, 2006

Changing Cricket

Changing Cricket

I still remember it was one of the heydays of Tendulkar. It was one of the games played in Sharjah where by the sheer might of his batting genius he was able to accomplish a victory. It was followed by more of them in test as well as ODI. And I always along with other Tendulkar fans all around the world felt happy to be part of witnessing a batting genius. The effortless force by which a person could walk as a Mammoth and making everyone look so pale in comparison was something everyone looked forward in every game. And one thought that came especially looking in cricket retrospection till then was that it might take ages before I could witness another batting extraordinaire like him.

And it came out to be so wrong as within a decade we all would witness episodes which would to a degree pale even Tendulkar’s batting demolition. Atleast when it came to runs scoring abilities. First Sehwag and then Dhoni. Both improving upon what others could do and others notably Jaysuriya, as they put the turf on fire. The recent score of 72 by Dhoni out of 42 balls is a glaring example.

But I suppose this is a part of a larger change in cricket of which Tendulkar was a part also. The redefining of cricket as a more aggressive game loosing the gentlemanliness or yesteryears and transcending it from an elitist British game to more populist game mainly of South Asian. And in that transition it also becoming as the second most watched game only after football/soccer.

And there are many effects of this transition; the biggest for sure is the batting abilities of the whole team. We now can not say anyone as tail. And as has been shown even in tests that now the tail can also score equal to sometimes even better than the top order. And the runs each

One of the biggest reason of it could be the diminishing role of bowlers. Gone are days when bowlers had a fear attached with them. These days even tail enders can smack a bowler like Akthar for a six. An unheard act sometime back. The biggest contributor being the bouncer restriction put in both types of cricket.

The other certainly is the emergence of fielding. Though many argue it is mainly because of the ODI effect, I would more correctly say it is glamorizing act of cricket which is making it so popular. A great catch or great save is as much a crowd puller as a great stroke by a batsman. Immortalized by Jonty Rhodes effected what is now a world famous run out of Inzamam-Ul-Haq it set a trend, and being teenagers then it suddenly made a lot of sense trying to “FLY AS JONTY” does. The cementing of this phenomenon was certainly done by the South African and then the Australin teams of the 90’s.

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