The changing yet constant face of cricket

Sunday, November 22, 2009 12:58 AM

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Saturday, July 04, 2009

It's said that the only constant in life is change.
That's surely true of the great game of cricket as much as anything else.

Those of us who have watched over the last four decades or so can testify to significant changes in the technical and tactical approach to the game at the highest level.

Unfortunately, those of an older vintage have also witnessed alarming changes for the worse in the fortunes and quality of West Indies cricket.

But that last aside, the onset of limited overs cricket, which developed in England in the 1960s and gained popularity worldwide in the 1970s, has left an indelible mark and indeed continues to alter our perceptions and expectations.

Time was when the upper cut - played with the face of the bat skywards - and the reverse sweep were on the black list of every cricket purist and respectable coach. Indeed, one West Indies batsman of the early 1990s is said to have fallen out of favour with the captain and the establishment after being dismissed on the reverse sweep in a Test match.

Thanks to the ever-present need for quick runs in limited overs cricket, the upper cut and the reverse sweep are now almost taken for granted in the arsenal of international batsmen. And coaches must now learn to impart such skills to young players.

The new and extremely popular Twenty-20 variety of the limited overs game has brought even more innovations. Now we have the switch hit - popularised by the England batsman Mr Kevin Pietersen. And the scoop sweep - back over the head of the wicketkeeper - played with such aplomb by the Sri Lankan Mr Tillakaratne Dilshan in the recent World Twenty-20 tournament in England that some are now referring to it as the 'Dilshan scoop'.

In the face of such batting innovation, bowlers have had to find answers. In recent years we have seen the 'doosra', which behaves like a leg break but is delivered from an off-break grip, and numerous versions of the slower and faster ball.

As for limited overs cricket and, specifically, the more recent Twenty-20 version, it is a direct response to fast-paced, modern-day reality and the increasing demand at all levels for rapid satisfaction.

There could even be a strong argument that the Twenty-20 version actually represents cricket's return to its roots. For when the landed and titled gentry in England first rubbed shoulders on something resembling equal footing with the village butcher and blacksmith on the village green hundreds of years ago, they weren't playing Test cricket. Far from it. The approach almost certainly would have more resembled today's Twenty-20 version.

Thanks to the batting innovations, run-scoring has picked up pace in first class and Test cricket - the latter played over five days and conventionally thought of as the top tier of the game. Thirty/40 years ago, 240 runs in a 90-over Test-match day would be considered good going. Today that's pedestrian.

Now we hear that the international custodians of the game, the International Cricket Council (ICC), are contemplating alterations to the structure of Test cricket in the face of the challenge from 'fast cricket'. These include the staging of Test matches under lights in late evening/night and a reduction from five to four days.

For those traditionalists who cringe at the prospect of such, they should take comfort that even in the shortest versions of this constantly evolving sport there are some constants that remain intact. For example, the batsmen who obey the basic coaching tenets, including the imperative of a straight bat, are still the ones most likely to make the most runs, and bowlers who hold to consistency of line and length remain the most successful. There could even be an argument that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

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