Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Empty Stands

Where have the crowds for Test Cricket gone is the first thing that hits us badly when you get to see empty stands for Test Cricket and that too in West Indies (WI). WI suppose to be a place where crowds swell and fans waiting for their turn to get into the stadium but the stadium was just empty on the 5th day play between WI and Aus. Some brilliant batting by Sarwan and Chanderpaul saved the test for WI, but there were hardly any fans to applaud the great innings.

With the big success of the IPL, i fear that the same empty stands will be seen even in India for test cricket few years from now. BCCI has successfully marketed cricket into the living rooms with whole of the family taking part in the viewing, but i feel it should also keep in mind that it should not end up over doing it. Come 2009, IPL will be played between 1st week of April to end of May, the tournament is followed by the T20 World Cup which i am sure will not get the same attention as it did in the T20 World Cup last time around. I am confident that BCCI will take note of this and keep the interest going in all possible way.


ICC is delving with some idea to bring in the crowds to the stadium with restrictions on number of overs for each innings in Test Cricket, in my opinion it will kill the joy of watching great tussle between the bat and the ball. The idea will make things interesting but take out the sheen out of Test cricket and will become more predictable over time. ICC needs to act quickly to save the game from the slam bang cricket, I am not against the new formats of the game but I plead to save the game CRICKET in the true sense.

3 comments:

Gajendra said...

vasu,
"how many times did u watch the test cricket held in chennai grounds?"

Vasu said...

To my memory all most all the time, i very rarely miss to watch games in chennai.

BTW is this in support of changing the Test Cricket format or to oppose the same. I am little confused.

abimanyu said...

Vasu,

I think the Indian crowd especially the Chennai crowd will be open to watch any format of the game when a quality cricket is played.

I strongly feel that no changes are needed to make the test matches more interesting. If quality pitches can be provided for every match, the games will automatically be interesting. The original format of the game must be preserved.