Can it get better than this?

A bowling line up comprising of Russel,Roach,Rampaul,Sammy and Sunil Narine with back up from Marlon Samuels.On paper, this looks like the best bowling combination in ODIs.The indian team not having Tendulkar will be in for a good contest.Though India nearly lost a Test,they were clearly favourites in that series.I am not quite sure for this one.
Earlier today, my driver asked when the next match was.I only knew about the Brisbane Test and not about the Cuttack ODI.We were in class I in 1971.The first one day match between two tests had taken place some time during the Winter Break.None of us knew anything about it though there were a few who had heard about the Test series in Australia.One day Cricket keeps coming in and out of consciousness while Test matches remain.1971 turned out to be a glorious year for India in Tests though it was only from the winter vacation of 1972-73,that I started following Test Cricket ball by ball.

Test Matches still cannot be written off

The exciting "Draw" in the Mumbai test where till the penultimate ball all four results were possible,has done a great deal of good for Test Matches.And has again established that Mumbai is the main cricketing centre which their ranji record establishes.Delhi is catching up and the attendance for the first and third tests do not give any cause for worry.

As regards the poor attendance at Kolkata, Mudar Patherya has done an excellent analysis on Cricinfo and his arguments can be supplemented by the fact that till 1982, only New ZeaLand was a weak side and the matches against them presented India an opportunity to win and therefore the matches were well attended.Now we beat most teams at home regularly and draw a considerable amount of Tests, therefore Test Cricket while not out of a knowledgeable fan's radar is not on casual cricket follower's agenda.

However those who can distinguish Doug Bracewell from John Bracewell and remember Floyd Reifer, test Cricket will always remin the real thing.

Get the Distraction out of the way

Media and fans have made a big issue of tendulkar's 100th Hundred.I wonder why the hoopla was missing when Tendulkar became the first player to have scored fifty hundreds.However it would be a great idea if Tendulkar plays all the five ODIs against the West Indies and gets 50 ODI hundreds and 100th 100 as well before the Boxing day Test at the MCG lest the campaign for a first series win in Australia is dwarfed by the 100th 100.Now that every run Tendulkar makes is the first such run made in that format in the history of mankind,We might as well celebrate Tendulkar's last few years in International Cricket and I am sure that will include the world Cup Down under.

Test Matches on Television

Two relatively sparsely populated countries have played a gripping Two test series.One that was followed by cricket followers round the world.SABC 3 was the host boadcaster and channels around the world were showing it.The Time difference was such that at least a session and a half could be viewed in India in the evenings.Which of course has been the reason that I have followed Cummins and Philander more than Yadav and Ashwin ,the local debutants this Indian Winter.And this gives me hope for the future of Test Cricket.Inspite of the naysayers and the dwindling Test audiences, test Cricket will never die.It makes so much of low cost programming available to a not very committed audience worldwide that it offers tremondous flexibility.

One can get up in the morning to a test match in New Zealand or Australia and watch for sometime and come back to the match only the next morning, having kept up with basic details on the Net/news.It would be night time in India for the matches in the West Indies and evenings for those in UK/South Africa .The timings in different zones would vary but what is unique is that the Test Match in one's own country would be the least watched on working days except when school children and school teachers return usually after the Tea session.Hence Test Match of high quality or on certain days of any quality would have a passing interest.To that extent a low turn out is not a worry.Since immediate result is not very relevant spending whole days in front of the Television set is not required.
Moreover,Test matches can be dovetailed with international holidays and in case of India with domestic holidays.Consider a holiday in the hills of Himachal for a week for a thousand families in summer for a Test Match involving India and a top contestant outside the FTP.Test Matches can therefore retain a niche.After all inspite of Chetan Bhagat,Amitabh Ghose is also read.Some readers read both.So with Test Matches and the audience.

Akashvani from Trinidad

Last few years I have rediscovered the Radio.However unlike the sturdy two band or three band radio of old, the radio now is available to me on my mobile phone and my desk Top PC.The range and scope of Radio has greatly improved.I can listen to internet radio streams of various Radio stations.I have now for several years followed Grand stand Commentary of Cricket Matchesfrom Australia's ABC radio, the Test Match special of the BBC on Five live cricket extra for all of England's home matches,lot of New Zealand cricket on Talk Sport and incredibly listened to the last time South Africa played in Pakistan on radio Pakistan.However, Akashvani as in All India Radio remains largely internet unfriendly and therefore though I remember Sushil Doshi and Anant Setalvad who brought the 1979-80 India-Australia live to millions of Indian homes, I hardly remember many Indian commentators of present day.Brian Waddle from New Zealand, Jonathan Agnew from England,Fazeer Mohammed from Trinidad,Neil Manthorp from South Africa, Glenn Mitchell and Jim Maxwell from Australia are more a part of my consciousness.

And beyond cricket there is Five Live's coverage of Wimbledon and extensive news and views.Listening to radio commentary conects you to the place the way TV commentary does not these days.Television commentators are hardly local and Walsh in South Africa or Tony Greig in a sri lanka Pakistan series stick out like aliens on earth.The SABC commentators including Aslam Khota and Natalie Germanos speak with enthusiasm and partisan feeling but are good to the ear especially playing in the background.
The mobile phone has brought back Indian Radio stations to our consciousness including the much maligned All India Radio.The absence of FM radio on Blackberry made me chose Sony Ericsson's Experia Arc and through the Android Market, I downloaded Tune in Radio app.Now I can follow SABC 200fm on the move and listen to Indian music from New Zealand and yes a radio station called Akashvani from Trinidad.
Radio experience has widened and the serendiptous find of a cricket match being covered in Tamil and Gujarati on Short wave radio has been replaced by joys of stumbling on new radio stations on the net.And the reception is much better.

An Exaggerated Fear

Harsha Bhogale read Chemical Engineering followed by a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM(Ahmedabad) and is a gifted writer.He has in a recent article on the strength of a poor attendance at Eden Gardens, bemoaned the lack of interest in Tests.He recalls old times to which one can add the full house gathered in January 1977 to watch England wrap up a match by scoring 16 runs required to win.Much as these are heartwarming instances, one needs to analyse the situation in context.In those days a Hindu vs Stephen's match had up to 20,000 spectators watching.Durand, DCM and Beighton Cup matches in football and Hockey were played to packed houses.A full house for a Test was therefore in keeping with sporting activity of a nation trying to build itself into a modern nation state.
That project is complete and Indians today aspire to various kind of options.A straight case study that analysts like Harsha Bhogale may like to anaalyse with all their IIM expertise is that in 1976, CAB had a few tickets for Bihar Cricket Association and dozens of lucky ticket holders from Jamshedpur,Patna and Ranchi went to Calcutta to watch Tests.Today Bihar with its teeming millions are disenfranchised from First Class Cricket.And while Dhoni may be an icon in Jharkhand, nobody in contemporary Bihar identifies with Saurav Tiwary, even though he is from Bihar and plays for Jharkhand only because Bihar is dienfranchised.But Bihar has found ways to stardom as the three KBC crorepatis can testify.
Even ODIs may not get the kind of attendance seen earlier.More active life, hectic school and coaching schedule, semesters, professional courses have opened avenues for the middle class and left them with less time for Cricket in general and Tests in particular.But Harsha need not despair as the Gangothri Glades Ranji Final in 2010 in Mysore displayed that given the occaison and the weather there can be a full house for a cricket match.It is nothing to despair and Harsha sounds to be making a case for bail out.It is certainly not in terminal decline and Harsha is mistaken about Green Park.Enough support has been there so far and also at New Delhi.However if Test Cricket is really dying may be nothing will help.
But Cricinfo and online streams keep getting audience for Tests as well.Perhaps the news about the decline of Test Matches are greatly exaggerated.

The Indian Batting Scenario.

A spirited West Indies fresh from its victory in Bangladesh did frighten the Indians.However this was the Feroze Sah Kotla and for a changeIndia had the attack which is young and give us hope.When an Indian fast bowler matches the West Indian quick at the speed gun, it is heartening and the dropping of Harbhajan caused no problem at all.

It is the batting that unravelled in the first innings and refused to in the second.The pattern is at once good news in the short time frame with the Australian visit coming up and not so much good news in that the only gen next batsman to feature in this match failed in both innings.That for India to be competitive even against this West Indies side, we need the redoubtable trio of Dravid,Tendulkar and Laxman to bat well means that they are presently indispensable.

They could not save the series in England because selectors had not taken Yadav.Had Yadav with his ninety miles an hour bowling been available in England along with Aswin instead of Harbhajan,the team could have fought in a better way.

Which of course means that an in between generation has to be passed over for Kohli and Pujara to replace the seemingly irreplaceable.Moreover with a reduced work load and little ODI and Ranji Trophy, there is no reason these players may be around for three to four more years.after all army officers and policemen do not teire at forty and the do not do any less strenuous work.They become senior Officers and lead by sheer experience.