CricDigs Blogs

ICC Champions Trophy 2009 Cricket Schedule. Finally, ah and I mean finally the postponed ICC Champions Trophy has been scheduled to take place in South Africa (once again the same great venue) between September 24 and October 5 2009 as per the official meeting held in Dubai.

http://www.clbuzz.com/icc-champions-trophy-2009-cricket-schedule/

There have been widespread reports about the Indian cricket captain and the players having meetings with BCCI officials and now even a special team has been convened to make the international authorities understand that why the Indian cricketers are apprehensive about the random dope testing regimen. However, it would be fair to say that the BCCI may find itself cornered in this argument. For starters, this clause is being slowly spread across the entire globe and nearly all sporting franchises are slowly warming-up to the idea that random testing is indeed the only solution. However, I would like to say that if the international agencies don’t think of cricket as a game good enough to be included in the Olympics, then why this obsession with making our players comply with international regulatory benchmarks??

You can always bank upon Pakistan to be what no cricket fan wants them to be — hopelessly unpredictable and judgemental. The team just won the T20 World Cup and just when it looked like things were getting back to normal, the tests and ODI series loss to Sri Lanka has come to the fore. What is more disturbing is how comprehensively Pakistan was defeated in every aspect of their game. Further, the ODI loss has evoked negative reactions like match-fixing and news of supposed bookies in the Pakistan team’s hotel lobby is sure to fire-up this issue beyond control. These are self-destructive habits that have always haunted Pakistani cricket and it is about time that the PCB shed its image of being some sort of a colonial powerhouse and started acting like a sports regulatory body and took responsibility for its actions.

Well, it does seem so. Just take any commentary team around the globe that consists of cricket players from the earlier years and you would come across a common argument. Nearly each of them is repeating the same thing that T20 is offering just too much cash incentive to players to turn it down. Players like Flintoff and Gayle have been accused of priortizing T20 and tournaments like IPL over their national test match careers simply because a player can earn twice as much with half the effort. Even if this is true, then should only the players be blamed for it? Many cricket players realize that their career isn’t sure to be as long as some of the game’s legends and soon they would be relegated to playing for domestic sides. This is most true for those who have been fighting body injuries over an extended period. Rather than just blaming the players for falling to the greed of T20 shouldn’t the ICC be conducting some in-depth search into why so much, and I mean literally excessive, cash prizes and tournament bounties are being given away only at T20 tournaments. Why not raise the cash stakes for test match cricket too??

Some bizarre opinions have been expressed over the last few days, in the world of international cricket. It would seem that all of a sudden, ODIs are being ridiculed by many former greats. Warnie has opined that only test match cricket and T20 should be counted as the principal forms of the game. Similarly, Wasim Akram has expressed his disgust with the manner in which the ODI game has failed to re-invest itself and therefore, is liable to perish soon. It seems that the common notion among many coaches too is that the ODIs are now being looked upon as the in-between format, combining elements of test and T20 cricket and therefore, have become too taxing for the players! To a certain extent, their opinions seem justified, considering the amazing popularity that T20 has received so far. However, shunning ODIs so suddenly seems like a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that scheduling all the three formats in a packed cricketing year is becoming increasingly difficult.

It is heart-breaking to see what is happening to WEST INDIES cricket. If falling performance levels and talks of severe camping within the team due to regionalism were not enough, now we have a full-blown, media-exposed disaster. The unthinkable has been done by Trinidad & Tobago cricketing authorities that have gone on record, saying that they were ready to field their own cricket team if the WICB did not relent and resolved the ongoing tiff with the international team members. The second-string side is mocking test cricket with empty stadiums and interest levels no more than a neighbourhood game. It is shocking to see that the ICC is yet to formally announce its intervention to try and do something about this. I believe the Trinidadian authorities have forgotten that the West Indies cricket team is a display of lot more than players from neighbourhood islands coming together to play and are only damaging any chances of the crisis getting solved. Agreed that the situation is particularly detrimental to the players’ interest but is breaking-away really an answer?

There seems to be no solution to the financial debacle that has hit the West Indies cricket. For the uninitiated, this problem has been brewing since the World Cup was held in the island nations, a few seasons ago. Since that time, the players had been waiting for huge rewards that they had been promised after the conclusion of the cricket’s biggest showpiece.

However, that has not happened till date and I believe that the players have lost their patience with the WICB. On the other hand, the Board is severely cash-strapped, just about having made enough profits to pay for the investment that had been poured towards hosting the World Cup along with investing in the long-due cricket development programs in the island nations. I can only hope that there is some resolution towards this. I was hoping that the ICC and may be the cash-rich bodies like BCCI and the ECB could provide some sort of temporary, mutually-beneficial, financial assistance to sort out this issue.

If you watch the ongoing Ashes series for just about 10 mins or so with pacemen from either side bowling, one thing becomes significantly clear — no matter what time of the day it is, the speed guns remain continuously around the 86+ miles per hour mark. And if the combination of Mitchell Johnson and Siddle from Australia or Anderson and Flintoff from England is in operation, watching ten to twelve balls continuously in the 90+ mark seems so normal. Even someone like Stuart Broad is bowling around the 87 mph-mark with ease. The point I am trying to make is, that these are the bowlers took little or not part in the IPL2. It seems that the break they took while most of the other bowlers were trying to fire in the block holes of batsmen has borne its fruit. I believe that playing non-stop in the T20 can be taxing and may be this is a hint that resting your top bowlers for non-international games is a good idea. But then, BCCI wouldn’t buy this theory, would it?

One could be a bit sympathetic to what has forced Andrew Flintoff to announce his untimely retirement. However, if looked upon from a strictly professional viewpoint, this does not seem like the most logical decision. Agreed, his injuries were beginning to haunt his performances and his body wasn’t in the greatest of conditioning to play entire test series like the Ashes but then he isn’t that aged to actually quit a format of the game. There was always a place for him in the England squad and even if he was present on a sporadic basis, it really would have made a substantial difference to England’s fortunes. In terms of quitting, he could have quit T20 cricket instead since it seems that much more taxing as compared to test cricket wherein bowlers always have the luxury of running to the dressing room for a quick rubdown along with long intervals of lounging on the deep-set fielding placements. He really has done no favours to his national side or his talent.

After an overdose of T20 cricket, it seems nice to be watching some good test match cricket. For starters, each of the matches is being played in different continents and the conditions are very different, making it more interesting. I would that somehow the WI dispute can be resolved and we can watch the actual WI players in action. The first match between Sri Lanka and Pakistan was engrossing and it was nice to see both the teams struggle to reach substantial scores on pitches they believed would favour each of them. The Ashes too has warmed-up pretty good with the England team just about managing to escape a humiliating defeat. Somehow it appears as though Test matches will still find decent TV audience as long as they aren’t played on totally dead surfaces but ODIs might struggle to survive with the onslaught of T20. it is just that test matches are totally different from the shorter versions of the game and ODIs seems like a longer, extended and slower version of T20.