Changing Times

One Day Internationals have been tweaked about a dozen times over the past 5 years. Nothing has come out of it. It has only contributed to making people less interested in that part of the game due to these many changes. Not everyone gets to keep up with the change in rules. But, when it happens on these many occasions in such a short time, a viewer who comes back to watch a game is put off considering that he finds himself not understanding the new rules. Change is good. But, too much will only lead to cricket as a product losing its old customers. Keeping all old customers and attracting new ones is always a good mechanism which the ICC don't seem to understand. They keep making changes to the ODIs hoping for increase in viewership, but ultimately end up losing viewers who aren't keeping up with the rule changes on a day to day basis.

A captain on the field who is reacting more than acting is said to be behind the game always and ends up short of achieving success. This is something that applies to people who run the game as well. Making one change after another, reacting to reduction or no increase in viewership isn't the way to go and it has more adverse effects when it happens in a short period of time. A change has to stay in the market for sometime for any assessment to be made on it. The one-day game is not that well respected because of the increasing number of T20 leagues popping up. It is high time that alterations to the one-day game are stopped allowing it to take its own course.

Timeless Tests and Day-Night Tests are probably the most important changes that are needed for cricket at this moment. In a time where people are talking about how the paying public deserves to see the best English team on the field, the paying public also deserves to see a test match go to completion. 

The worry is that a timeless test might stretch on to 8 or 9 days which I personally feel is not going to happen. A tennis match for example is a timeless match. Theoretically, a tennis match can go on for days, which never happens. The fact is that making it a timeless game will only make it more interesting and the paying public are happy that they see a result at the end. Over the past few days there has been so much talk about the third test between the West Indies and England with the mystery spin of Sunil Narine coming in, James Anderson and Stuart Broad being left out. Sunil Narine has flown in from the West Indies for this third match and the first two days get rained out. If this were to be a timeless test, there still would have been lots of interest in this match. The paying public anyway doesn't get to see a result now. What difference would it have made if the best players were on the field!! The "Timeless Test" is also important for a Test championship that is going to be held in 2017 if everything goes fine. A result has to be achieved if a test championship has to be conducted. If those matches are going to be timeless ones, why not now!!

The "day-night tests" issue has been handled in an awkward fashion, with the ICC suggesting that the teams involved may go through with playing them if the respective boards agree to do so. This mechanism made sense with the DRS because of the financial dependencies that the system had. But, makes no sense whatsoever with this, considering that the only dependency that exists is the availability of floodlit stadiums. If a test championship is ever going to be played, it is a given that the end stages of the tournament have to be day-night tests. Letting teams choose on their own now is not the way to go if a test championship is going to be held.