The Hindu : Sport : Batting for bowlers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 15, 2006

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Sport

Batting for bowlers

A sport can lose its essential greatness over generations without ever losing its mass appeal, writes Nirmal Shekar

Quite a few kids nursing dreams of becoming the next Brett Lee or Makhaya Ntini everywhere in the cricket playing world might have picked up the red cherry at the school practice nets with a bit of trepidation on Monday. In this modern age of choice and opportunity, who would want to opt for a profession that is getting to resemble the lot of the poor slaves in a Roman Coliseum two millennia into the past.

Whether, as lovers of sporting spectacle, we humans still retain the hard-wiring for the sort of bloodlust which underpinned the motives of the promoters of those brutal and unequal contests between enslaved men and hungry predators is debatable. But cricket — particularly one-day cricket — is slowly but surely moving to a point where bowlers have the same role as a punching bag in a boxing gym.

If, today, you choose to bet on the 1000-run mark being breached in an ODI in the near future — say, over the next two or three years — you are unlikely to get lucrative odds with any of the leading sports bookmakers in the world. The odds might perhaps have been hugely tempting until the Wanderers run-fest last Sunday — but not anymore.

Marvellous contest

Yes, the series-deciding fifth ODI between Australia and South Africa was a marvellous contest that produced an incredible 872 runs in a ball short of 100 overs. Those fortunate enough to have watched this contest featuring gladiatorial heroics would certainly count themselves lucky. And the match itself would surely make anybody's Top 10 list of ODIs (where it would figure in that list would surely depend on your own point of view).

Yet, as breathtaking as the cricket was at the Wanderers last Sunday, the point is something like this was waiting to happen. Surely, this was not a chance event that is unlikely to be matched or surpassed.

"It will only be six months and we'll see 1000 runs scored in a one-day game," the great South African batsman Barry Richards is quoted as saying by The Courier-Mail. "The skill has been taken out of cricket. As a cricket person, it is very boring because the bowlers have no chance.''

Remember, this comes from one of the greatest batsmen that ever walked the face of the earth, not from a disheartened, active bowler who might have a right to feel a bit like a moving, conscious dart-board.

Sport evolves

In a fast changing world when there is so much at stake — monetarily — in every major sport and where the tastes of fans are wilfully manipulated, it might seem ludicrous to expect cricket to remain what it was 50 years ago, or even 30 years ago.

Sport, after all, is an organic thing; it evolves. But the point is, it evolves not so much through Darwinian natural selection as it does through artificial selection. And the big question now is whether, as cricket lovers, we have selected right for ourselves and for posterity?

"All the rule changes, the power plays and things, have just made things so much in favour of batsmen,'' says Richards.

Is this what we want? Or, to be precise, is this what we should want? Should we not canvass for a level playing field for the bowlers? Should we not caution the International Cricket Council that unless the issue is addressed seriously and remedial measures taken, at some point in the future bowling robots might have to be pressed into service to relieve flesh-and-blood humans of their misery?

`Gettable' targets

When limited-overs cricket started, a score in the region of 230-240 in 60 overs was deemed `decent.' Then, when the number of overs were reduced to 50, still 4.5-5 runs an over was the norm. But, over the last few years, in most parts of the cricket-playing world, even 300-plus has become `gettable'.

This apart, thanks to technology, bats have become lethal weapons, grounds have shrunk, pitches have become slower even in Australia and the West Indies and the benefit of doubt still goes to the batsman!

Yes, batathons are more television-friendly. Even those who have never held a cricket bat in hand on a playing field can be turned into fanatical converts when the ball is carted around the ground relentlessly, thanks to our natural vulnerability to such red-hot visual stimuli.

But, then, as a contest between bat and ball, where does that leave the great game? "Cricket is the only game that has been made smaller in the last 100 years. It's all in the name of commercialism,'' says Richards.

A sport can lose its essential greatness over generations without ever losing its mass appeal. In fact, it can rope in tens of millions of newer and newer fans while suffering serious damage to its very soul.

In the event, connoisseurs of cricket and former cricketers should take the lead in trying to preserve the soul of the game as a contest between bat and ball.

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