The duration of a cricket match (ODI and Test) is very long. We tend to miss out most of the moments because of our day to day business. In order to watch the complete match LIVE, we either have to take leave from our workplace or burn the midnight oil.
The broadcasters solved the problem by a creating a package 'Highlights', where exciting moments of a match are packaged into a 2 hour program. This was just a workaround as watching highlight was not as exciting as watching a Live cricket match .
The slow pace cricket generally became boring with a few exceptional contests. As a result many people(including me) lost interest in cricket. The 2007 world cup was most boring patch in cricket history. No team was able to pose to a challenge to mighty Australia. After the world cup I saw one forward which mentioned that in next world cup Australia should be awarded the trophy right after the opening ceremony :). No need to conduct the matches.
Then came the transition in form of Twenty20 world cup. ICC decided to conduct the tournament in a shorter version - 20 over a side format, which was introduced in 2003 to popularize domestic cricket in England. Usually in a ODI match the first and the last 10 overs will be exciting, so the creator of Twenty20 would have thought let's have 20 overs only and save time :)
A day before the start of the tournament I read in a TOI editorial that there have been many shorter version innovation like six a side, double wicket, single wicket but Twenty20 seems to stay alive as it is more like cricket. The format is packaged with music, cheer dancers etc.
After upsets by Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, India Pakistan Tie the Twenty20 Worldcup has turn out to be more exciting than the ODI world cup a few months back.
The blockbuster match between India was Pakistan was awesome. The match was tied, so the winner was decided by bowl-out. It was the best part, the scenes were similar to a penalty shootout in soccer. Team India won the bowl-out contest as they had done there home work properly, they picked the right bowlers for bowl-out.
There was not even a dull moment in the match, every moment was like a highlight. Thanks to short duration, the match started at 9.30 pm IST, I didn't even missed a single moment, even though it took to me 3 hours to travel from office to home.
Amazing match one must say :)
ReplyDeleteThis was the comment on cricinfo before that hitouts.
"How hard can it be to hit three stumps without a batsman in front of them? We'll soon find out"
Still can understand how Asif could knock wickets with batsman around and in hitouts his team mates couldn't
One must appreciate Dhoni's Captain skills for choosing the right person. (No agarkar , pathan and RP)
The reason no team was able to challenge Australia was because they had the best team. 2020 is largely luck. As I write this India have won the world cup of cricket and fair play to them. 2020 means less than 5050, which means less than 22 (test cricket). Test cricket is cricket, anything else is just impatience and an affront to the fundamental concept of a concept between two men - the batsman and the bowler.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't players say without hesitation that Tendulkar is better than Lara, Kallis and Ponting? Because those guys have records that are close to Tendulkar (I would say, in Lara's case, equal to Tendulkar) in test cricket if not so much in one day cricket. That is the reason.