Opinion Testing times
Of the many qualities of chalk and cheese,the most celebrated is how different they are from each other.
Of the many qualities of chalk and cheese,the most celebrated is how different they are from each other. But if you put them in a wok,throw in some vinegar,and cook for long enough,youll eventually get a paste in which its impossible to tell them apart. The concoction may not be good to write with,and even worse to taste,but itll be pretty and white.
Team sports and world rankings form a similar mixture interesting,perhaps worth discussing if you have time to kill,but quite useless in the larger scheme of things. They have no bearing on who will play the next tournament (unlike tennis and golf),and theyre not a genuine yardstick because of the infrequency of matches and the varying quality of opposition at a given time.
So,as Mahendra Singh Dhonis Indian cricket team was getting ready for the third Test against Sri Lanka with the No.1 rank within grasp,one wondered if media trumpeting would have any bearing on how they approached the match (do Spain prepare differently if their friendly against Croatia will give them first place on the FIFA list,or the All-Blacks train extra hard if a victory over the Springboks guarantees Rugbys top slot?) Far more interesting than that thought,however,was the irony behind India almost leading the world in a format it has cared so little about over the last year.
Talk to senior players and they say that Tests are primary the only genuine,long-drawn assessment of cricketing prowess,of patience,perseverance,and battling hardships,a true reflection of life. Talk to youngsters and the confusion starts coming through because Twenty20 can give so much in so little time. Talk to the administrators and the conversation invariably veers towards their lack of interest in selling Test cricket,whose attributes are no longer appreciated in a world that doesnt have the time or the energy to sit through five days of cricket.
It could indeed be a hard choice quick results and easy money on one side,tradition and quality on the other but no other country has decided where its priorities lie as clearly as India has in recent times.
First came the IPL,then the second IPL,and now the third IPL is almost upon us. In the meantime,there have been five-match one-day series,seven-match one-day series,and triangular one-day series. Even the three Tests against the visiting South Africans next year a contest between the two top-ranked Test sides in world cricket have now been replaced by five ODIs and possibly two T20s.
In all,India have played six Test matches in 2009,as compared to 15 in 2008 and 10 in 2007 (when almost half the year was dedicated to one-dayers because of the World Cup). Going forward,since the BCCI seems to perceive international cricket only as the garnishing around the six weeks of IPL,the number is likely to remain in single digits in 2010,and dip further with time.
In such a scenario,Test cricket itself will not matter too much to our country in a few years; so what of its flimsy rankings?
And if we do put that argument aside for the moment,in keeping with the spirit of the times,who the best in the world is can be determined more accurately through universal acknowledgement rather than an ICC list for example,Australia over the last decade,and West Indies in the 70s and 80s.
A few prerequisites must be fulfilled before a team becomes No. 1 in Test cricket. For India,they would be beating Australia in Australia and South Africa in South Africa (for them,it would be beating each other away from home,and India in India). The Indian team are scheduled to travel to South Africa next December,and that series might throw up some real clues about where they stand. The rest is just a delicacy cooked up to pass the time two parts chalk and one part cheese.
kunal.pradhan@expressindia.com
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