Sporting declarations!

Right now, all of us test enthusiasts are celebrating 2 Huuuuge events - WI beating England yesterday (2nd Test) and Bangladesh beating Australia today (1st test). Not that we love England or Australia less (wait...I do not like Australia, despite the fact that they are a much more gentlemanly team now), it's just that we love the underdog more!
But I do not want to write about the underdog - No Sir. For me, while the Bangladesh victory was entirely a Bangladesh contribution (and full marks to them ), the WI victory had a lot to do with Joe Root's 'sporting declaration' on the 4th day of the Test. He sat WI 322 to chase and win on day 5. That seemed reasonable (given usually how bad WI bat , and how well England bowl). But, surprise-surprise, WI actually won! And made Joe Root look foolish. So, I thought of digging up some such declarations that made Test matches interesting!

1. SA versus England tour 1999/2000, 5th Test : The series was won; SA were up 2-0. The 5th test had seen a lot of rain and a result was not looking possible (SA had batted). So, the spectators were in for some disappointment. But hey, Hansie Cronje forfeited one innings, convinced England to do the same and the result was that England were directly in the 4th innings chasing 249 to win. They won! All of us fans thought it was a great gesture - it turned out to be a fixed match. You can read about this here

2. India versus Australia, Chennai 1986 (1st Test) : Also famous as the Chennai Tied test! Not sure if Allan Border had been sporting or downright condescending. Australia batted first and declared in both innings - second innings declared on 170/5 . At that stage, maybe India chasing 348 in the final innings looked impossible! But wonder-of-wonders, India came so close to winning that the test got tied!

3. WI versus England, 1968 (4th Test) : Maybe Joe Root was compensating for this test. Sir Garfield Sobers decided that he would make the match interesting. So, he declared on 92/2 and set England 215 on the last day; thinking that it would be enough! Enough to allow England to win and create a result out of a match that was not expected to have a result!

To read more interesting stuff on declarations in cricket - do check this blog .

Dhoni shepherds Bhuvaneshwar to a 100 run partnership!

Most of us (myself certainly), thought that Dhoni's playing days were about over! That it was possibly better not to make Dhoni part of ODI/ T20 teams and instead give other players a chance (maybe, make KL Rahul keep wickets if you couldn't find a good wicketkeeper-batsman). Not out of any malice towards Dhoni; it's just that of late Dhoni seemed to be losing his touch, unable to finish matches.
But yesterday showed us Dhoni in a new avatar. A finisher indeed - but who ensured that he stayed around and encouraged others to finish the job, who acted as a player and a coach at the same time, who got a no. 9 batsman to reach his first half century in 69 matches!
The second India vs Sri Lanka ODI (Micromax Cup 2017) began on a very familiar note - SL batting well, then losing the plot and then being saved by some sensible batting by no.6 and 7! 236 as a total never looked enough - India were set 231 in 47 overs (Duckworth Lewis) and reached 109 for no loss in some 15 overs! It looked like India would finish this match too in 30 overs. Then both openers got our quickly - India rejigged the batting order to give other batsmen a chance!
But then - something surprising! A bowler out of nowhere took 6 wickets to leave India at 131/7 - 7 wickets lost for 22 runs!! Akila Dananjaya , coming to play a match the day after his wedding, took 6 wickets! The best part? He got 3 of the batsmen - including Kohli, bowled to googlies. It sort of reminded me of Kumble where he would spin but then trick batsmen with straight balls and get wickets.
So, at 131/7 - India looked like losing the match by a huge margin. After all, there were 100 runs to get in around 25 overs. Not too many runs needed, but hardly any wickets in hand! Dhoni only had the bowlers for company ! And Dhoni wasn't even batting as well as usual. But hey - we got to see Dhoni in a new avatar - he rotated strike, took singles and didn't allow Bhuvaneshwar Kumar to play a rash shot - even when Bhuvi played 17 continuous dot balls! Surprisingly, Dhoni didn't even hit boundaries later (he hit one overall) - instead he let Bhuvi do all the hitting to reach his maiden half century.
SL were unlucky to lose - but a master showed their batsmen how to keep calm when things are not going your way. SL re-discovered a bowler and India realized that their batting line-up runs deeper than they thought! So, all in all, not a bad day for cricket!

Saving cricket's Tests!

Hey! Anyone watching that?

1 week - 2 test matches and 2 disastrous results! India beat SL in 3 days and won the series 3-0; England best WI in their first test - again within 3 days and in fact by getting WI out twice in a day!

The India-SL series saw pretty much no spectators ; the Eng-WI one had a whole lot of people in the stadium (because it was a day-night affair)! However, looking at the way the first test went, it is unlikely that spectators will buy tickets for the rest of the Eng-WI series! But hey - we are all kicked up about the Ashes, the India-Australia series, the SA-Aus series and maybe the India-England ones too!

It appears that there are 2 kinds of test matches - those that interest viewers (and hence they don't mind following the match in some way) and those that are outright futile (India-SL or Eng-WI for example). But if you look at it seriously, there are some basic problems that Test cricket has:

Let's have more competitive games please!

1. Format - A 5 day game! Who seriously has the time to spend 5 days on a game. That too with each day lasting maybe 7 hours! Even ODIs are under pressure from T20, so , it is natural that people have lesser interest in Tests!

2. Lopsided competition - About 20 or 25 years back, it was almost always the case that the home team would win the test series. Otherwise, they would all play out draws! But, each side used to make an attempt to win (except certain recordbreaking matched like these) . Now, it looks like teams give up after the first days play! WI is not even sending its best team anywhere. Infact, if there is a test series between any two of India, Australia, England and maybe South Africa, there is a chance of a competitive game. 

3. Home advantage and the toss - Other than the home advantage (England takes advantage of swing, India of spin), there is also this whole thing of the toss. Win, the toss, bat first and save yourself from having to bat on the 4th or 5th day to win/save the match! Given that the pitch deteriorates towards the last day of the Test and also considering that the home team knows the conditions best, the visiting team is almost always at a disadvantage with the toss!

4. Remuneration - Test quality players sometimes carry that label and hence miss out on all the money in professional T20 leagues. Also, test matches earn less money for the player (and yet need more commitment). More importantly, a player who is great in Tests, but not in the short format (Cheteshwar Pujara for example) doesn't even seem to get sponsorship opportunities! So, can some players really be blamed for not wanting to play Test cricket?

While there have been some discussions around trying to organize Test matches better and having a sort of Test World Cup that will add more meaning to bilateral series, all these plans have not materialized. Some are talking of doing away with tests altogether and only having T20 - there is this interesting article on the same : 

But Test cricket does have its fans (spectators who actually pay for the ticket) and from a players development perspective, it definitely helps batsmen and bowlers improve their game significantly. But we might need changes in forma and mindset to allow Test cricket to survive :

1. Format - I am borrowing someone else's idea here- why not reduce Test cricket to a 4 day, day-night game? Something that will be played only Thursday to Sunday, so that spectators will atleast turn up on the last 2 days? To ensure teams try and win (and not draw), a test championship and a suitable point structure is needed ; more on that later.

2. The home advantage and toss - 2 ways of looking at this; either let the uncertainties continue (home team leans on the curator to make a suitable pitch etc.) , but allow the visitors the right to decide what they want to do first (no toss) or allow random drop-in pitches to be used (used sometimes in ODIs) and take away the home advantage altogether. The pitch will be something both teams discover only on the morning of the match , so any advantage the home team might have had is gone. Infact, maybe we will have interesting scenarios where there is a pitch suited for spinners in Australia or maybe for fast bowlers in India!

3. Remuneration - This part is tricky! There are more ticket proceeds, there's more sponsorship money and more money for Telecast rights in case of T20s (and also ODIs)! So, how can a test player be paid more money that a T20 player? So, maybe the boards will need to use T20s to cross-subsidize Tests better. More importantly, the cricket boards should take away the temptation of T20 leagues competing with Tests by locking a calendar for T20 contests like IPL, BBL etc. etc. When the leagues are in progress (and 2 or 3 leagues can be operational in parallel), no Tests will be played and vice-versa. Then, it will also make it possible for the cricket boards to make Test participation a pre-condition for T20 league participation by players! So, in short - pay the players better in Tests and allow them T20 opportunities like IPL/BBL etc.

4. Lopsided competition - If point 3 above is taken care of, each country will be more likely to field its best team. In which case the competition is not so lopsided! However, to ensure this is indeed so, a better way might be to have a 2 tiered test structure with relegation/ promotion. This will make each Test match interesting (hopefully).

5. Kill ODIs -  Though there might not be a very strong link here, it is my hypothesis that 3 formats are way too much in cricket. T20 is better that ODIs as a shorter format (more games in the same time, more unpredictability and hence more fun) and Tests score over ODIs as a longer version! So, why have the added complication of one more format? Eliminating ODIs will save up time for more (interesting) T20 matches and Tests. It will also reduce injuries and fatigue among players to some extent!

6. The Test Championship - Finally, having a Test championship might actually keep everyone interested. It will help if there is an actual 'final match/series'between the number 1 and 2 ranked teams. But even without it, it should be fun to see teams having a clear target towards being crowned the Test Champion. It would be even better if teams are penalized for drawing matches (a drawn match makes both teams lose 1 point; an outright win on the other hand will give the winner 3 points and the loser 0). Thus, Test matches will be saved from draws (not there there are too many drawn matches these days). 

My few thoughts as a Test cricket fan. More ideas/ thoughts are welcome.

And test cricket gets into a rut....

Realized I haven't written in more than a month - guess I got carried away with the excitement of watching the Women's World Cup (and of the Indian cricket team coming really really close to lifting the World Cup!).
In many ways, the Women's World Cup was an eye opener. It showed how closely contested matches can make the game interesting - yet it faced the familiar problem of lopsided contests. It also made me wonder why women do not play test cricket often!
But lets forget about women's cricket now and come back to the men's game. SA were playing England in England. After losing the first test badly, SA thrashed Eng in the second test and rekindled some hopes of a contest! But the 3rd and 4th tests proved that 1) SA no longer bat as well as they used to! 2) SA also are unable to bowl as well as they used to! 3) The all-rounders in the England team are really all rounders - they bat and bowl well. Unlike in India when they batted AND bowled badly!
It also proved that a good leader can only do so much - Faf coming back to captain SA in the 2nd test, did lift their spirits and won them the game. But hey, same team failed comprehensively in the next 2 games! The same Joe Root who was praised after the first test, then castigated after the second is now being hailed as a great captain!
Another great captain , of course is Virat Kohli. India versus SL - India won the first 2 tests by huuuuuge margins! SL has (still) not been able to recover from the loss of Malinga, Vaas, Sangakkara and Jayawardene! And so, India has a chance of white-washing SL 3-0 in this series! It will be interesting to see how Kohli and team fare on away Test tours - versus SA, England or Australia. That's where the true test of India as a test team, will be. Until then, more one-sided test series in store!