The oldest and the most challenging form of my favourite game and passion, cricket, is under serious threat of becoming obsolete. The dwindling public interest, resulting in a chain reaction of lesser sponsorships and media glare, empty stadiums and players choosing T20 ahead of it to prolong their careers is solely responsible for the fact that Test Cricket is gasping for breath. I can think of only one cricketer, the legendary Sachin Tendulkar, who has had the belly to abdicate himself from the lure of T20 and instead concentrate more on Test Cricket, which he thinks, would test his abilities as a cricketer ten fold.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) is also aware of this sorry state of affairs and is mooting quite a lot of innovative initiatives to preclude this great form of the game from becoming stale. Day-night test cricket is being talked about along with pink balls. However, the biggest problem with Test Cricket is boredom for the spectator, to watch a game of cricket 8 hours a day for a period of five days, and even after that, not being guaranteed of a result!!
One possible solution to this problem might be to introduce a “Limited Overs” flavour to Test Cricket. As most know, each of the five days in Test Cricket requires 90 overs of cricket to be played. That means a total of 450 overs for both teams over five days. If we can think of dividing these overs between two teams, that is, a maximum of 225 overs per team to bat for the entire match, then pale draws would be completely eliminated. One team may use a certain number of overs in its first innings, and then use up the remaining overs in the second innings. Whichever team scores more runs in those allotted 225 overs would go on to win the match. This way, teams can be stopped of batting for 3 days uninterrupted, as they sometimes do to force a draw, like the Test Match in Colombo way back in 1997, when Srilanka scored 952 runs against India.
If we can have night matches with coloured clothing and pink balls with 225 overs per team and a result guaranteed at the end of five days, with the existing rules like follow-on and bouncers allowed in an over unchanged, then I am sure we can revitalise, rejuvenate and reincarnate this ailing but toughest form of this wonderful sport. Let us keep our fingers crossed!!
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