Cricket Special Report: Which format should be scrapped to save others? Former Pakistani Captain Imran Khan sheds light
Former Pakistan captain Imran Khan hasn’t been active on the cricket scene the way he has been in politics. Yet he has come out once or twice out of his self exile to say something on cricket matters, and has often been right due to his mature way of thinking.
His recent comments about shelving one day cricket to preserve pacers have received a lot of support, as well as have generated a lot of controversy.
He said while delivering a speech at the ‘MCC Spirit of Cricket Colin Cowdrey Lecture’ at Lord’s last week, that unless Test cricket is made supreme, the fast bowlers breed may die. He said that rules favouring the batsmen were making bowlers robotic and unless and until one day cricket was shelved, the pacers might vanish from the face of the earth like dinosaurs did.
What if Imran is wrong here … he has been wrong before. He once said that Mohammad Sami can handle the pressure of leading http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755’s pace attack, yet he is nowhere in sight. He also said Twenty20 cricket is not real cricket, yet now he is coming out in support of it and blaming one day cricket for the decline in test cricket
Former Pakistan captain and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Javed-Miandad-c66580 didn’t agree with the skipper. “I think one day cricket should stay as it is far better than twenty20 cricket. I don’t think that twenty20 cricket is really a form of the game because it has nothing in it”, he told a local news channel.
“Test cricket is no doubt real cricket and it is the real test as well,” Javed added. “If a player’s form and class is to be judged, his batting in Tests is followed, not his swashbuckling in limited overs cricket. I think test cricket is here to stay and no matter what anyone says, if there is a choice for me to pick two formats of the game, I will not go for twenty20 cricket.”
Should twenty20 stay and one dayers be scrapped to save pacers as Imran says, or should twenty20 be kept for occasions like World Cup, as Miandad believes. Experts say that Twenty20 has saved cricket from becoming a past time of the old, since it is followed by the youthful spectators. One day international used to be followed the same way in the 70s and the 80s but it hasn’t evolved as an independent entity, something that goes against it. The Super Sub idea where a player was swapped after the first innings was scrapped, since it didn’t go with the flow, yet it would go well with Twenty20 cricket.
Imran said that a solution to the ‘What to scrap problem’ lies in the rethinking of the 50-over game. "Twenty20 has taken off so well that, rather than having the 50-over game, we might as well just go straight down from Test cricket to 20 overs.“”
Although he said that one day has no place in this fast paced modern world, he felt that there is still a place for a 50-over World Cup, once every four years. "I feel the players need to play tests and Twenty20 formats, and apply the skills honed in these formats in a one-day World Cup every 4 years” Imran said.
Imran might be right or wrong, but one thing is certain. One day cricket has become boring since the introduction of twenty20 cricket. So far, in the last 4 years, 3 twenty20 world cups have been held and all have been successful, unlike the cricket world cup in 2007, which was a disaster of sorts. The period between the 25th and 40th over are as good as a dull movie and unless and until new rules are brought in the game, it will remain so.
One day cricket needs to break free of its image as a batsmen’s game where bowlers are treated like bowling machines, because if this goes on, they will eventually fade as dinosaurs did, as Imran predicts.
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