The tyranny of away tours!

2 teams embarked on Test tours with the promises of winning (but hopes of managing respectable performances one suspects). Both went from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere diagonally! England to Australia and India to SA.
England were being led by a new captain (one of the best batsmen in the world) , had performed well against teams at home and were generally in good form. It looked like the 5 Test Ashes series in Australia would be closely fought even though eventually England might just lose. But lose they did and how! Australia won 4-0 (instead of 5-0) only because the 4th Test was played on a flat pitch. Several factors contributed to England eventually losing, including the absence of sufficient practice in Australia.
And now lets come to India. India reached SA with the best chance in the past 25 years , of winning a test series. India bowled well, but batted bad (to be fair both teams batted bad), with the net result that SA won by 73 runs. A margin of 73 runs when chasing 209 is like a margin of 140 when chasing 400! So, it was a big defeat no doubt. While there were debates on the batting line up - mainly Rahane being dropped for Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul being dropped for Dhawan, the truth was that India wet to SA without ANY practice games! India still can (and will) learn from the mistakes of the first test, but the momentum is lost.
Playing test matches in alien conditions is always tough , no wonder then that the WI teams of the 80's and the Aussie teams at the start of this century, that could win matches consistently when touring, were considered great! In those days the gap between teams used to be huge, teams like India , Pak and even NewZeland didn't have the kind of matchwinners that most teams today do. So, touring teams could hope to win! These days, it is very very different. As Bangladesh has shown recently (and hopefully Afghanistan and Ireland will in the near future), teams are able to bridge the talent gap through training and coaching. Winning outside one's country is getting more and more difficult.
So, how does one make test matches a lot lot more interesting.
1. Let the touring team always have the toss advantage - so, based on the history of the ground (favoring batting first or fielding) and depending on the relative strength/weakness of their team, they can decide what to do first and deny the home team that advantage.
2. The toss doesn't always offer an advantage - Joe Root found that out during the Ashes this year. So, maybe another way is to use drop pitches that are picked up at random by the ICC. The weather cannot be controlled, but maybe the pitches can be randomised enough!
3. This one is tough - insisting on time for atleast 3 practice matches would be a great idea, but no one will want to 'WASTE' time on these. So, in the tradition of county cricket, cricket boards should keep sending players to play in the leagues of foreign countries - then, English players will get acclimatized to Australia, India to SA, the Aussies to India etc. etc. Imagine Steven Smith playing Ranji cricket for Mumbai! Maybe it can be sweetened with the permission to play that country's T20 league without any strings attached!
4. How about test matches on neutral venues? Imagine the Ashes in India - or an India versus SL test series in Jamaica! (There might hardly be any spectators, but I guess the cricket boards are too busy chasing TV rights to bother about ticket playing spectators). Then, no one will know the weather or the pitch and the results will be that much more sweet!

Wondering what else might work!

Edit (Jan 12, 2018) : A nice write-up on cricinfo echoing my sentiments on practice matches : http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/22039162/why-need-tough-first-class-matches-the-ashes

2017 in retrospect- some events that stood out

Another day (actually more like day and a half) to go before we change the calendar. Thought of putting down some important things that happened this year in the world of cricket:

1. Day Night tests find a firm(er) footing - Day night tests were started 2 years back ; pink ball cricket was more of a novelty, an experiment. This year saw pink ball cricket becoming more entrenched - WI played it, Pak and SL did too; SA and Zimbabwe capped it with a day night test , to end the year. So yes, looks like these are here to stay and increase. Why is this important? That's where the next point comes in...

2. 4 day tests - This one is still in a proposal stage, but the SA versus Zimbabwe 4- day test was accorded official status. The ICC reckons that they will 'keep experimenting' with this concept till 2019 and then decide. The first one was a damp squib (got over in less than 2 days), but with more evenly matched teams, and with Day-night 4 day tests that last Thursday to Sunday, there is a very good chance that spectators will fill stadiums to watch test matches.

3. Test League - Viewer interest and Test matches now get a context - thanks to a test league. All matches played will lead up to an eventual showdown to decide the best test team. So, every bilateral test series (and not just the Ashes) gains significance.

4. A relook at T20 leagues - The SA promoted Global T20 league didn't take off due to lack of sponsors. This caused a lot of soul-searching, some job losses and the conclusion that a) T20 leagues need a place in the cricketing calendar and b) That we cannot have too many T20 leagues.
Interestingly, this might lead to the football/ soccer like format where all the action is intra-country (in the leagues) ending with a inter-country league champion; the shorter bilateral formats (more like the football 'friendlies' will occur less often). This might just mean that Test matches (D/N, weekend, 4 day) will stay bilateral, T20s (or maybe T10s) go league style and ODIs get extinct!

5. T10s - Is this a fad? Is it a threat to T20s? Or is this a pension plan for retired cricketers?Or maybe, this is cricket's ticket to the Olympics!!
No one knows what this can become, but the T10s (10 over a side matches, each match lasting approx 90 mins) tournament in Sharjah (where else) was a reasonable success. Eoin Morgan (the biggest star of the T10s and the captain of the eventual winners - Kerala Kings) was suggesting T10 be the cricket format for Olympics; what if someone takes him seriously!

There were several other notable events - India's victory run across formats, Rohit Sharma's third double hundred in ODIs, Pak winning the Champions Trophy (and ensuring that this particular tournament gets at least one more chance) , Bangladesh's victories (and defeats), SA finally settling the ABD issue on captaincy, Aussies getting a world beating team again, England looking like losers despite a new captain (again) and also showing the world how much they like their drink, SL still grappling with the loss of Sangakkara and Jayawardane (except when they play Pak), WI and NZ not doing anything very spectacular (except for WI coming very close to upsetting England in a test match), Zimbabwe struggling with finances, Afghanistan triumphing despite the finances..... notable sporting activities. The politics (BCCI et al) continued and India's financial clout is more firmly entrenched. Lets see what 2018 brings (hopefully an Indian series win outside).

An addendum - This was also the year that Women's Cricket came into its own. The performances of our Women in Blue made people sit up and take notice. The Women came close to winning the World Cup (they played better in the finals than the men's team did in the Champion's Trophy finals) and got recognition and acclaim all over. So maybe, this will be the year when Women's cricket start's getting more mainstream.

Test losses and T10

England has lost the Ashes - lots of reasons : the guys who were supposed to perform well, didn't (Cook and Root); the lower order couldn't bat well, the English bowlers weren't fast enough, the Aussies batted really well and their bowlers were really fast! But yes, a very important reason - I guess England did indeed miss Stokes! Shocking that it appears to come down to one man's absence. But honestly, Stokes in the 2nd Test could have meant an English win and Stokes in the first test could have meant a test draw. He most likely wouldn't have been able to save this 3rd test though.
So, time for England to introspect and for the Aussies to experiment.
After another ho-hum ODI series (India-SL), where the only excitement was in the ODI that India lost (we could have been all out for a record low score), it will be time for India to go to SA. A real test awaits the team - rude shock for Virat after the honeymoon? Or maybe, this time, India will really play well. Lets see.
Also worth seeing, or rather following is a new format. The T10 format that was held in Dubai. Got over pretty fast. Each individual game lasts 90 mins and from what the reports indicate, it seemed pretty exciting - http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/21802800/the-top-ten-t10
Maybe finally, cricket has some means of competing with football!

A series of hope...and another with smoke..rather smog!

And there goes another one!
The last days of two Test matches today. England versus Australia - the second Ashes test and India V/s SL, the final test of a series no one cared much about!
England were thrashed in the first test and it looked like they were going to lose the second one badly too. Then, surprisingly, they managed to end day 4 on 176/4 needing 178 to win on the final day. Were I a gambler, I would have put my money on England winning and breathing some life into the Ashes! Thank God I am not. Even as I am writing this, England have lost 3 wickets today for the addition of just 12 runs! Now, it's upto Bairstow to butt the Aussies (figuratively) and hope to win! But hey, at least there's some hope for England to win!
And now, lets compare this with the India-SL Test series. SL managed to draw the first test (actually India should have been in that position), lost the second one at Nagpur and now are desperately trying to avoid losing the third test (at Ferozshah Kotla). This test was more in the news for the SL players feeling the effects of Delhi's (in)famous air pollution! Now, it will be worth seeing if the pollution finally saves them.
Ok - back to the Ashes now. Maybe England will manage a fascinating draw rather then lose while trying to win!

The English Ass(h)es

Another Ashes season has begun - and like most, it began with a lot of expectations. England were going in without their talisman (Stokes), so, it looked like winning was going to be difficult. But then 2 new players called Vince and Stoneman, showed that England might just have a chance to win!
False signals it turned out. England lost the test by 10 wickets - mainly due to average bowling and really bad batting. There were a lot of sidelights that impacted the game - Bairstow headbutting Bancroft (much much earlier in the tour) , Moeen Ali given out stumped due to the line being of uneven width.... but they seriously cannot take away the fact that Australia played well and England played bad. With the way the English are playing, it seems unlikely that even Stokes will revive them. Sure, England might win a Test in this series (maybe 2 if they are lucky) , but it looks sort of impossible for them to win the series.
I will be watching the remaining 4 matches with my face covered I guess!

An Away match on a domestic pitch!!

The pitch has a lot of grass, the fast bowlers have showed the India top order it's place (except for Cheteshwar Pujara, who batted sanely), the bowl is swinging and the Indian lower order has pitched in with some useful runs! All this is expected to happen on the India tour of South Africa! Except for, it's happening here in India!
On Day 3 of India's first test against SL (Eden Gardens, Kolkata), India have finished their first innings on 172 while SL are fighting on 109/2. SL won and chose to bowl ; the pitch looked like it would assist fast bowlers and it did! India only have the rains to thank (and maybe curse) for the fact that the match has reached Day 3. The pitch has eased today making batting easier - maybe, if India had gotten all out on Day 1 itself and SL had batted, India would have had a better chance.
But now, it looks like SL have a chance of not only winning this Test, but also, maybe a chance of winning this series. That would be historic - SL winning a Test series in India! Lets hope that does not happen.
Interestingly, we have seen recent ODI series where the team winning the toss has chosen to bat first, rather than chase and sort of succeed. We are now seeing a Test match where the team is choosing to bowl first and risk batting on the last day. The situation used to be reverse atleast some time back (or maybe , I need to analyze the results and the tosses better).
Here's hoping for more interesting Test matches :)

How to make Tests interesting? Get Pakistan to play more often ;)

In the past one month or thereabouts : India beat SL 3-0, England beat WI 2-1 , Aus tied with Bangladesh 1-1 and SA beat Bangladesh 2-0 in Tests. The England -WI series and the Aus-Bangladesh series had some moments of interest. WI actually got to the last test of the series with some chance (outside chance) of winning the series. Bangladesh entered the final test leading the series! But finally sanity was restored. Back to the same old boring test results!
But hey, just when things were bad, enter Pakistan! The Pak-SL series in UAE (Pakistan's home ground) was expected to be uninteresting. Pak playing at home (where they hadn't lost a series in a long time) and SL playing away from home, after having being white washed in their home test series! Pak winning 1-0 or 2-0 seemed possible!
But hey - thank Rangana Herath and Pak for doing the impossible. With 136 needed to win the test (after SL collapsed spectacularly in the third innings), Pak got all out on 114 (http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/18037/report/1120284/day/5/). OK - this was Pakistan. OK - SL had also collapsed to a very low score and OK - this was Rangana Herath (master of the 4th innings) bowling. So what is SL went 1-0 up in the test series? Oak would bounce back in the second test.
The second test had a script that went awry - SL hit 482 in their first innings. Pak got all out for 262. But then came the fightback! Pak got SL all out for 96 runs leaving them 319 get to win.
This is where the fun began - Pak lost their first 5 wickets for 52 runs and their last 5 for 23! In between, they put up a 173 run stand! Yet, Pak lost by 68 runs finally. This was a test match that , at 225/5 (92 more runs needed, 5 wickets in hand), Pak should have won. Even Rangana Herath was not troubling them so much. Yet, Pak lost.
I am not happy (or unhappy either) that Pak lost. I am just happy about how unpredictable this match was. Each day , it looked like there would be a different winner! This is exactly what the beauty of test cricket is. Unlike most ODIs or T20s, where the winner is usually clear sometime into the game; in a test match, fortunes can fluctuate each day. But yes, that can happen only if there are evenly matched teams (India, England, Australia and SA; preferably not playing anywhere in the subcontinent). Or, it can happen if one of the opponents is Pak :)
get them to play and you never know who is gonna win.