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20-20 Cricket in Indian Sub-Continent! A distant dream |
The green astro-turf destroyed Indian Hockey, Indian hockey players who were legends on green grass seemed out of place on fine astro turfs, Now the game seem to be dominated by the fast, powerful and burly teams like South Africa, Argentina and other who started there hockey from astro-turfs.
The same thing is going to happen to Indian and Pakistan’s Cricket. The heavily pushed 20-20 Format by ICC will not raise its head in Indian - sub continent and might even damage the whole cricket scenario of this region. A child in any sub-urban Indian city dreams of playing test cricket in India and I think it will take ages for the grass root level of cricket in India to play fast cricket as 20-20 requires. In a country where a ground like Eden Garden capable of handling 1, 00,000 spectators gets jam packed for 5 days test match between India and Australia, 20-20 cricket is of no use, since it was only invented to make the game popular in countries like UK and other European countries where people don’t have time to watch a full day’s cricket.
20-20 is a game of power hitters like Shahid Afridi and Shewag , its not for likes of Tendulkar or Dravid , who play slow and steady. Even this type of cricket don’t need you to be full knowledge of cricketing shot, someone with power of hitting the ball out of ground will be a instant hero , but the fan of Indian sub-continent who is addicted to see the stylish game of Gavasker to Tendulkar wont like the pajama version of game.
ICC’s dream of promoting cricket with 20-20 might increase revenue for ICC but if 20-20 takes over one day or even test , then you wont see any other Shane Warne or a Murlitharan , because 20-20 has no respect for bowlers and even batsman with class wont find any place in this version of cricket.
20-20 is a modern version of cricket which might get place in fast paced countries but in places like Indian and Pakistan it might not find that good place. But one thing that might help the game by introduction of 20-20 is that bookies, match-fixers will be out of place since they cannot predict the game. Anything can happen in 20-20, on a good day, even Bermuda might beat India.
20-20 is a new beginning; there much hype about it but i fore-see more mayhem coming with it. In the long run it’s going to reduce the fun out of game. In the name of entertainment it’s going to change the face of a cricket team.
This entry was posted on Thursday, April 19th, 2007 and is filed under 20-20 Cricket, Asian Cricket, Cricket World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Whether any body likes it not T20 matches are here to stay. Players need to learn and adapt to change. Would you like to go in a bullock cart to your home city instead of the train or plane.