Of ODIs and Tests

After the thrilling if a little technology induced end to the First Ashes test Nottingham, a friend quipped that the Test was interesting only on account of its ODI qualities. However looking back quickly over a century and more years of Test Matches, while one can think of any number of Test Matches which resulted in nail biting finishes, in a little over forty years only the 1975 World Cup finals come to that kind of closeness of contest and there too if Lillee could bowl more than his 12 overs things would have been different.

The West Indies Pakistan match in the first World Cup probably comes close as Murray and Roberts added more than sixty runs to win the match. However it was the 18 year old Miandad bowling the last over and not Sarfaraz Nawaz. The essential quality of a cricket match over one innings or two is that the team scoring more runs wins. By limiting a team from batting to the end, this basic premise gets jettisoned. A team may declare but to be forced to restrict its innings is a different ball game altogether.

The One day Cricket is struggling against t20 for the very reason that a team blessed with extraordinary talents cannot by the very nature use those talents to the maximum. In t20 if you have one weak bowler, he has only four overs to hide and the spectator does not have to go through ten overs of long hops and donkey drops. The problem that Test Matches have to counter is mainly sociological. Cricket from early times started in rural settings and gradually got adopted by gentlemen of leisure with income coming from India and the West Indies. With gradual decline of such people, the retired community and students remain the principal segment that test cricket depends on.But the situation will auto correct and Indians can take summer and winter vacations to include a Test match, the Australians can come to England and India and the whole World can visit the West Indies.There are more cricket followers in the USA then in NewZealand and it is just a matter of time before a Test Match involving India and the west Indies at Bridgetown or Antigua with the beaches thrown will be a big draw.