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Cricket
02 October 2006
Things change. Cricket
changed. From the time I used to be play as a teenager to now when I follow it
on the Internet and don't think I can ever take stance again without looking
stupid.
I am making a collection
of the things I think have changed since the 70's and 80's in the way cricket
is played, or at least I see it. The more obvious stuff like overdose of
one-day cricket, fielding standards improving have been flogged a thousand
times by writers in the past few years, so I am not going to waste keystrokes
on that!
1. Players sporting
prescription glasses: The 70's and 80's saw a lot of cricketers take to the
field in their prescription glasses. I can think of Clive Lloyd, Gordon
Greenidge, Geoff Howarth, Dilip Doshi, Anshuman Gaekwad, Zaheer Abbas...Can you
think of others? I don't see anybody taking the field with glasses these days.
Sourav Ganguly comes to press meets, but that's it. He probably switches to
contacts when he is on the field, or probably he wears reading glasses at press
meets to look sophisticated!
2. Players sporting
head bands: I remember Narendra Hirwani,
Romesh Ratnayake. Can't
remember anybody else from the 80's...and can't see anybody these days for
sure.
3. Batsmen
shouldering arms: The only person today who could do this and still look
elegant is Rahul Dravid. I think his arms itch to shoulder, what with him being
such a correct player, offering the copybook stroke to every ball; or not!
Nobody can forget Sandhu taking Greenidge's stumps as he was shouldering arms
in the 1983 Prudential Cup final. I think that one moment served to drive the
last nail in the coffin of this practice. I am not sure I miss it though...
4. The "rest
day" in test matches: This had to go, sooner or later! For folks who
started following cricket since the 90's, we used to have a rest day after 3
days of cricket in a test and then the final 2 days would be played out. At
best, this day served as a placeholder for speculation on the course of the
rest of the match. The logical explanation somebody gave me was that test
matches started in England on Thursdays and they had the rest day to basically
enable everybody to go to church. I guess with the power of balance in cricket
shifting to Asia (read India) and material instincts getting more important
than religious zeal, this had to go.
5. The double-care
fielding pose: Fielders are taught to attack the ball these days. Batsmen put
pressure on fielders by running the first run harder. Back in the 70's and 80's
if you had a sweeper position and the batsman hit a shot here, a single was
granted. The batsmen would amble across, and the fielder would let the ball
come to him, go down sideways on one knee and field the ball and throw it back
to the keeper leisurely. This was double-care fielding. It looked good but was
certainly lethargic.
6. Personalities like
Viv Richards, Ian Botham, Qadir: What can I say? I am
fortunate I saw these guys play. There are many more...cricket is more pleasing
to watch today primarily because of the technology, but back in those times, it
was watchable for the skill, personality, and craft of the players. You had
Dennis Lillee, The Windian batting lineup of Greenidge, Haynes, Richards,
Lloyd, Kalicharan & bowling lineup of Garner, Holding, Marshall, Croft, the
silken brilliance of Gower, the impeccable technique of Sunny, Vishwanath,
Zaheer Abbas, the unconventional tactics of Javed Miandad...
For those who have
played cricket as children in India, there can be no other sport that can be
your favorite all life. You would have played cricket with any stick - a
Slazenger bat to the bat used for washing clothes at home, played with
synthetic balls, cork balls, tennis balls, table tennis balls, paper balls,
plastic balls (these used to swing like crazy). And the biggest thrill was
playing with cork balls without pads, gloves, and whoever heard of the box in
those days!
Can you think of other
such things that have changed for the good or bad in cricket?
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