Don’t write off one-dayers just yet

Shorn of their context,one-day games are a weaker offering. Put in the right ambience,they could be thrilling. It is a bit like the great violinist being ignored when he plays outside a subway station but being flattered with expensive tickets and applause when he plays in a theatre. Before writing an obituary we need to give the patient a good shot at survival.

Having said that though the debate has thrown up a few interesting thoughts. Matthew Hayden thinks the middle overs,widely seen as the weak link,are actually the most interesting since they test a player’s skills greatly. And Peter Roebuck thinks we bring the problem onto ourselves by setting deep,defensive fields and making the single easy and attractive in the middle overs. It is an argument worth looking at. Why don’t captains attack a bit more after the power plays are over? In most games fielders are pushed back as soon as allowable; it’s as predictable as people responding to a fire alarm or a commentator throwing to a break! The moment you let ordinary bowlers bowl to ordinary fields,you get ordinary cricket. That is why the new power play rules are so good. They force captains to keep the fielders in,perforce then to attack. So here’s another theory. Attacking captains will bring the zing back into one-day cricket.

The other idea,now much discussed,is to split the game into two innings of twenty five overs each. We need to be careful while accepting or rejecting this since we need to know the reason for the suggestion in the first place. If the idea is merely to spice up the game,see more big hitting,then this is not too different from playing two back to back T20 games. With a lead and a deficit it has enough variables,and a few things to commend it,but essentially it is T20 wearing a disguise. If,on the other hand,it is to ensure that both teams play under similar conditions,which I think was the basis behind Sachin Tendulkar’s suggestion,then we need to carry over the score. Take a break after 25 overs but then get the same batsmen out again and treat it like a 50 over game. That would require a greater degree of traditional skill and retain the difference between formats.

Traditional skill,by the way,is becoming fashionable again. India have decided to bring Rahul Dravid back and Sri Lanka have done something I have waited a long time for. They have finally inducted the prolific Thilan Samaraweera into the one-day game after living in denial about him for a long time. Eventually class must tell and straightaway Sri Lanka have something to counter their recent weakness; a batsman after the first four have gone. Dravid and Samaraweera are to me cricket’s equivalent of the holding midfielder; unfashionable but indispensable. It might seem to take the game backwards but like fashion,sometimes you become more relevant by looking back and seeing what works.

On a slightly different note,I am a bit confused by all the talk about Harbhajan courting controversy again. Papers have been full of his past misdemeanours,and there have been enough of those,but I think we use the wrong weapons to beat him with. Here is a report from the Times of India about the incident: ‘The feisty off-spinner,who very often finds himself in the news for all the wrong reasons,jabbed at a cameraman after the camera had hit him on the head while he was taking his luggage out from a car before entering the airport.’ So what have we here? A cameraman nudges Harbhajan on the head and pushes him aside because he wants a shot of Dhoni? It is all very well to protect our kin but in this case I think the culprit is someone else!