Long live The Art of swing bowling!

I enjoy watching cricket. I have followed and loved the sport since I was a kid. But, these days, watching Cricket bores me.! It’s not the same. The game has evolved and it’s good for the game and the revenue makers. However, the game is getting more and more batsman friendly day by day. I fear there will be a time, where a team will score 600 in an ODI and 350 in a T20. There will be a time where scoring 450 will be normal. These scores sound exciting and we praise the batsmen. Even I don’t want to take anything from the batsmen, but the question here is, is cricket just a batsman’s game? Is it moving towards being just a batsman vs. batsman game? There have been long talks in the past whether cricket is a batsman’s game, that past is now a reality, especially the Limited Overs Cricket.

As far as I know, cricket is supposed to be a batsman vs. bowler, one ball at a time, how you face it? It’s about the skills of the batsman to survive a good ball and punish the bad ball vs. bowler’s skill to get the batsman out. I enjoy that form of cricket. It’s not about hitting sixes and fours on every ball! Nowadays, the bats have become so thick and long that even a top edge flies over the boundary. That’s not cricket! At least give something to play with to the bowler.

Coming to the pitches these days, every pitch is being flattened. Why? So that we get scores of 450+? Because only batsmen attract a large crowd? Well, if that is so then the competition between a batsman vs. bowler is curbed down. Both are not on equal platforms to compete on. It becomes more about one team’s batsmen vs the other team’s batsmen. In the future, only wrist spinners will be able to spin the ball, if the pitches aren’t supporting the bowlers. We need competitive pitches. We want the batsman to face some competition rather than facing straight deliveries with no swing/spin. There is no fun in watching sixes and fours right from the first over of the match in a 50 over game! Yes, credit to the batsmen if he does that in swinging conditions and green pitches. However, on a flat track? I would say it is easier for a batsman to score on flat pitches than a bowler to swing the bowl.

One more aspect to this is that the batsman’s mind set has changed, thanks to T20 cricket. We don’t see patience anywhere these days in Limited Overs Cricket. I am waiting for a long time to watch a match where a batsman has actually played through the start, and built on a good innings in challenging conditions. Lack of patience is really bad to the game. We see batsmen getting all out before the 50 overs and it’s not because of the bowler’s skill but due to the batsman’s mistake. Cricket is built on the core of patience and you take that aspect away, there’s no cricket at all. The batsman of today is more free and given the license to start hitting his strokes from the start of the innings. The attitude has shifted from being patient to being aggressive whatever the situation of the match is. The boundaries have become shorter which is again a point to go in the batsman’s favour.

To make it worse, there are 2 new balls in ODI’s. Recently the great Sachin Tendulkar made a statement saying that 2 new balls is a disaster for ODI’s. And, I completely agree with him. It removes reverse swing completely from ODI’s because the ball needs to be old to swing reverse. Also, the white Kookaboora has been in question by many bowlers of not being able to swing. India’s Bhuvaneshwar Kumar said in the last year’s Champions Trophy that the pitches in England have been hard compared to 2013 CT and also it is being difficult to swing the White Kookaboora. Indeed, the white Kookaboora ball has an extra layer of laquer to maintain the white colour and that’s the reason it takes more time for it wear off to get reverse swing.

Having said that, let’s hope ICC makes takes some decisions to make the sport a batsman vs. bowler sport again. That is where the sport stays true to itself. Give the bowler’s some chance. I am grateful to ICC that Test matches are still competitive and remains to be competitive and intense. Also, I hope an ODI doesn’t mellow down to a 40 over game! The sport we love and the sport we cherish as Indian fans, let’s not witness the bowler die, because watching a ball swing is as beautiful to watch perfectly executed technical cover drive.