Has Cricket lost its identity?

Even today, Indians remember the day when they took on the mighty West Indies in the 1983 World cup and out of all the odds of them being the underdogs managed to win the ever-invincible West Indies team to grab the glittering world cup. The rivalry between India and Australia in the Test matches went on for years with Sunil Gavaskar being dominant in the Test format of Cricket, which ruled the sport until the 80s. Back then, it was magical to win a Test match on a foreign soil let alone win the series. The players had to be perfect in batting and bowling to create little chances which were vital in deciding the outcome of the game. The matches were intense, fierce. Every player wanted to make a mark for their nation and to enable the team to win. It was a 50-50 game for the batsmen and the bowlers. 250 was a good score back then and 200 was defend-able. For every run the players had to run and sweat. It was difficult to score boundaries and every shot which resulted in a boundary was applauded. The grounds were too long and the fielders had to run all over the ground. The Australian Batsmen and the West Indian bowlers were the deadliest and feared to be handled. They ruled the Tests and the ODIs.

Cricket like few other games has changed drastically over the years. Especially in the last two decades it has changed from being a 50-50 game to a Batsmen friendly game. Probably the sponsors, fans interests and the business needs of the sport could be related to these changes, the question still lingers in many of the sport’s followers’ minds that had this changed the basics of the way the sport has been played all these years? During the initial days of introducing the Power-plays in the ODIs, most of the teams started to score a little over 300 comfortably. Centuries began to flow from the opening batsmen who used the first 15 overs to their best. Lots of boundaries were scored and especially in India, Sachin and Sehwag were the fiercest partners who would take any opposition by storm at home. 250 and 200 started to be no more defend-able. Every team who batted first wanted to cross the 300 runs mark. Slowly after this Batting and Bowling Power-plays were introduced and the game sparked with 4s and 6s during the start and the death of the match. Teams like South Africa, India and Australia started to score over 350 runs and this morally demoralized the team batting second. Winning the toss was very vital as the pitches especially in the subcontinent like India favored the team batting first. The Test matches as well started to see lots of double centuries scored by prolific batsmen.

After the introduction of T20s, the game has completely turned into a visual delight with short stadiums and shorter boundary lines favoring the batsmen to score maximum runs off a ball. Free Hits for No Balls gave more power to the batsmen. Use of technology like DRS, Hot spot and Slow motion has turned the game more scientific and precise. Technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning has paved way for getting detailed statistics about past performances, strengths and weaknesses of players. This has gotten to an extent that the use of technology has enabled prediction of individual players scores and wickets. The Bowlers of today should be on their toes every ball to prevent the batsmen from scoring runs and every dot ball creates a huge impact in a game like T20s. The Captains of today must be articulate and should possess good decision making skills.

It is raining runs in Cricket these days. The game has started to inherit practices from other games. For instance – Reviews and DRS from Tennis, Timeout in T20s from Basketball, Super Over like Penalty shootout in Football. Slowly we might see Yellow and Red Cards for players during/after the game. We might get the substitutions on who might bat/bowl resembling Football. Lots of changes are about to come and this might make the game more open to satisfy the changing trends and interests in the minds of today’s Cricket lovers. The model of the game is changing for sure. But there might be few who still long to watch the old Tests and ODIs which were battled hard with the basic elements of the game intact with its identity and rules. And the old timers might feel to have a trade-off to preserve the old standards of the game without the sport losing itself to other sports and new practices.