Twenty20 beats Tests and ODIs hollow

The first ever test match, in 1877 was not recognized as the inaugural test until a few years later.

The first ever one-day international, in 1971 was not recognized as the inaugural ODI until a few months later.

In contrast, when Australia played New Zealand in February 2005, everyone already knew it was the first Twenty20 international!

Labels: first test, odi, test cricket, twenty20

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:32 am | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
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Brett Lee retires, BCCI asks for a rule change

Yesterday, Brett Lee announced his retirement from test cricket, to focus on playing limited overs cricket (ODIs and T20 games). There's nothing novel about such an announcement. He's just following in the footsteps of others like Flintoff, Oram, Styris and Vaas. You could argue though that given Vaas hasn't been picked in any ODI or T20 game by Sri Lanka for over 6 months after he retired from tests, he is unlikely to make it to the 2011 World Cup as a Sri Lankan player.

I had pointed out when Flintoff, Oram, Styris and Vaas retired that cricket boards run a huge risk of many marquee names, especially quick bowlers and all-rounders, quitting test cricket. Will they wake up now and figure out how to optimally schedule tests, ODIs, T20 games, ICC events, bilateral & multi-lateral ODI series and T20 leagues like the IPL, Champions League, KFC Big Bash, Twenty20 Cup, etc.?

Lee's decision to retire was widely expected. He hasn't played a test since the series loss to South Africa at home. He didn't manage to last out the ODIs against India. He hasn't played a T20 game for Australia since August 2009.

Yesterday, Sachin Tendulkar became the first man to score a double-century in a ODI game, with Belinda Clark having been the first to reach the mark in a limited overs international. The logical question is if other cricketers will now start scoring 200s for fun.

It only took one effort of 400+ (Australia, at the Wanderers in 2006) and in the next 4 years, we've had 9 instances. It is quite likely that Sachin Tendulkar's achievement of scoring 200 will also fall in the next 1 year. After all, it wasn't too long ago that Herschelle Gibbs made 175 in 111 balls and Tillakaratne Dilshan made 160 in 124 balls.

In an unexpected development, it is learnt that the BCCI has approached the ICC with a proposal to limit the number of batsmen in an ODI innings to 7. While publicly, the BCCI claims to have done so to protect the ODI game and to reduce the imbalance between bat & ball, sources in the BCCI told this blogger that the main reason was the abject failure of India's bowlers after South Africa recovered from 180/7 (Jaipur) and 134/7 (Jaipur).

A few other occurences in the recent past have convinced the BCCI that getting the likes of Ashish Nehra, Sreesanth and Ishant Sharma to bowl well to tail-enders is really not worth the trouble. The better option is to ensure that they don't even bowl to #8-#11., thereby insuring against last-minute carnage by the batsmen.

Labels: 2006 champions trophy, bcci, icc, lee, retire, rules, tendulkar, test cricket

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:27 am | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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Re-structuring the ICC Future Tours Programme

The ICC's President, David Morgan, has revealed that the Future Tours Programme (FTP) planned for the period 2012-2020 will relax restrictions around the concept. Teams do not need to play each other home and away over a six year cycle as is the case currently.

What is interesting though is that the current version of the FTP only spans 6 years, and was drawn up in 2006. I find it bizarre that the ICC will be coming out with an 8 year schedule (2012-2020) at a time when a lot of folks, including administrators and players, don't even know what's around the corner 2 years from now. In the last couple of years, cricket has gone through so much change with the advent of private leagues, IPL, Champions T20 league, questions over the relevance of ODIs and tests, etc.

Then again, I'd be stupid if I expected the ICC to actually make any sort of sense.

A two-tiered structure for test cricket, in the form of a test championship, seems a natural solution to rationalize player workload and have better more even contests. Sangakkara has every right to feel aggrieved that Sri Lanka was not included in the ICC's discussions over a 2-tier system. But, does a 2-tier structure mean that a team is shut out from the top tier forever? Of course not.

A 2-tier system does bring with it some uncertainty over whether a team being demoted to the lower tier could mean loss of spectatorship / TV audiences. I'm fairly sure that boards who are opposed to a 2-tier system are mainly concerned about the worth of their TV (& other media) rights if there's no guarantee that their team will play in the top tier instead of battling it out for the wooden spoon. There's no doubt that money from media rights finances the game. So it would be stupid to take on those who pay up the cash!

Yet, if the cycle lasted say 3 years instead of a promotion & relegation every year, TV rights owners have some amount of ability to predict who will play whom where and when. This could mean they are far more likely to dish out the cash than if teams were promoted & relegated every year. The other reason, which I wrote about 5.5 years ago, why an annual promotion / relegation should not be used is to avoid a situation where a team like (say) Ireland just happens to top the 2nd tier in one year, gets promoted to the top tier and gets thrashed by all and sundry.

Assume there are a total of 12 teams - Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Ireland, Kenya, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe (it is likely that at some point of time, if the West Indies 'splits' and individual island countries compete by themselves, we will need a 3-tier system). There would be 2 tiers of 6 teams each (Based on the current rankings, it would look like - Tier-1: India, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Australia, England & Pakistan; Tier-2: New Zealand, West Indies, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Ireland & Kenya).

Only test matches played within the tiers would count for any points. If teams that played for test trophies (Australia-England, England-South Africa, Sri Lanka-Australia, India-Australia, Australia-West Indies etc.) ended up in different tiers, they could still play their 'marquee' series. But the result of the tests and series wouldn't count in the ICC test championship points system. Boards would of course need to remember that if players got burnt out playing the marquee series, then their team's prospects in the test championship could be impacted.

If each team had to play all the other teams in the same tier in test series (of 3 tests each - not more, not less) home and once away, they'd need to play a total of 30 tests (15 home & 15 away) over a 3 year period. That's not much. In the 3 years spanning 2006, 2007 and 2008, 7 of the 9 test teams played more than 24 tests.

The points structure could be fairly simple (10 for a test win, 5 for a draw, 0 for a loss, with bonus points for winning by an innings or anything more than 7 wickets) and also factor in the series result as well as whether the it was a home or away fixture and adjust the weightage accordingly.

There would be no concept of 'Super Eight', 'Super Six', knock-out games or a grand final. At the end of the 3 year window, the team with the most points would be declared the winner of that particular tier. The team that ended up last in the 1st tier would swap places with the team that topped the 2nd tier. In case of a tie, number of series wins away, number of test wins away, points from away wins, etc. would be used to determine who should be ranked higher.

There would also be individual awards for bowling, batting and fielding.

In fact, this sort of 2-tiered structure with equal matches for all would satisfy the demands from the likes of Sri Lanka, New Zealand, West Indies, Pakistan, etc. who claim that a 2-tier system would not benefit them.

For the boards, the TV revenue from 'marquee' series is a much bigger factor. So how do they reconcile themselves to it? Perhaps with the knowledge that if they manage their players well, create a large enough pool to pick from and create sane schedules, their best players would still be available for the marquee series.

Labels: burnout, fatigue, future, future tours programme, icc, test cricket

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:33 am | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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Are 50-over ODIs in danger actually?

Asking if the 50-over game is in danger sounds timely considering the following:

• I, and I suspect several others, yawned after realizing that two 50-over ODI tournaments will be in progress simultaneously (the 7 ODIs between Australia & England and the 4-match tri-series involving New Zealand, India & Sri Lanka.
  
• Sachin Tendulkar has a proposal to save the format from becoming irrelevant.
  
• The ECB announced that domestic games would be 40-overs a side from the 2010 season.

The ICC keeps bleating about how it is proud that there are 3 viable formats of the game, and that all three can co-exist. That's actually rubbish. If the scheduling of tours & tournaments doesn't change significantly, one form of the game (and I'm willing to bet that it won't be T20) will gradually disappear until there's nothing left of it, except for silly-looking administrators (to paraphrase Lewis Carroll).

Let's assume that there will be 3 formats of the game, and that a typical series would have 2 tests (sadly), 5 ODIs and 2 T20 games. Factor in ICC rules (can't locate it) that mandate at least 3 days gap between tests, 2 warm-up games (1 before the tests and 1 before the ODIs), at most 1 back-to-back ODI, 2 days gap between the other ODIs, 1 day gap between the T20 games and at least 1-2 days gap between each leg (Test, ODI & T20) legs of the tour. We're talking of something like a 40-day tour, with 21 playing days. Nearly half the tour's duration would be devoted to the 5-day game (either the actual playing days or the warm-ups or the time between first-class games). It definitely does seem like the softest target. Remove the tests from the tour, and you can easily squeeze in at least 5 more ODIs.

Now, on an average, each team plays around 3 test series during a year. Let's assume that all these series are 2-test, 5-ODI & 2-T20 affairs (which is a very simplistic & minimal assumption). So we're talking of a total touring time of 120 days, out of which just over half are playing days. If only it was so simple.

There are ICC tournaments to contend with, each lasting 30-40 days at least, on an annual basis. Then there are some series that don't fit in to the minimalistic 2-5-2 model. They may have 3 tests, 5 ODIs and 2 T20 games. Others like Australia's tour of England have 5 tests, 7 ODIs and 2 T20 games. That tour started on June 24 (excluding the T20 World Cup) and will end on Sep 20 - nearly 3 months, with nearly 50 playing days! Then there are some other meaningless tri-nation tournaments. Then there're the new leagues - IPL and Champions League.

So, players could be "on-the-road" for something like 220-250 days a year, playing on around 120-140 of those days.

Isn't it still obvious that if the ICC continues to harp on retaining 3 formats, something is going to give?

Yet, will it necessarily result in T20 driving the 50-over game out of existence? I suspect not, primarily for commercial reasons.

Assuming that other factors are identical across both the formats (i.e. teams play out the entire allotment of overs, and lose the same number of wickets), TV viewers watching a 50-over game would see 60% more ads than when they were watching a T20 game (figure it out - 49 over-breaks v/s 19 over-breaks per innings).

Even though you can squeeze in 2 T20 games within the duration of 1 50-over ODI, the number of ad-breaks between overs is reduced by 22% (49 v/s 2x19). We haven't even got to the possibility that more wickets are likely to fall across 50 overs compared to 20 overs, thereby increasing the number of ad breaks!

Even the ECB's (and Cricket South Africa's) moves to 40-over cricket will fail for the same reason - 20% less ad-breaks. The BCCI is unlikely to support the ECB & CSA on this. Cricket Australia moved away from the tri-series format only this year. So they're unlikely to take a plunge without having evaluated the benefits of staging 2 bilateral ODI series compared to the ODI triangular format. There's probably not too much of a point in discussing what other countries will do.

In any case, the ICC had already announced the venues for the next 3 World Cups over three years ago. This doesn't imply that a change in realities won't make them change the format of those tournaments. After all, the 2010 edition of the ICC Champions Trophy (hosted by West Indies) was converted into the T20 World Cup. Such a move would need the BCCI's backing (and by implication a few other boards that kow-tow to them), and that seems very unlikely at this point in time.

Labels: burnout, fatigue, future, odi, prediction, test cricket, twenty20

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:00 am | Sledge/Read 5 sledge(s)
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Should test matches be reduced to four days?

A couple of weeks ago, in an interview to India Today, ICC President David Morgan indicated that reducing test matches to being 4-day affairs was on the agenda.

Q: Other than merely re-emphasising its importance, what is being done on the ground to restrengthen Test cricket?
Another thought that many people have, that we are examining is whether Test match cricket can be played over four days rather than five.
Q: How quickly will we see a four-day Test? Has the mental shift been made?
The mental shift has been made in that it has been talked about and examined, I think that has already occoured. I would be very surprised if within a year you haven't seen some significant changes in Test match cricket. Over rates, pitches, daynight Test cricket … I think in a year's time you will see for yourself changes that have occoured in Test match cricket.

Let's examine if there is any evidence to support the ICC's stand. I took all tests that had been played after 1 Jan 2006 and excluded games involving Zimbabwe & Bangladesh. That's a total of 123 games. Surely that's a decent sample set. Then I excluded the Antigua farce and the terror-impacted Lahore test.

So now I had 121 tests and here're the results expressed in average duration of the test.

• The average duration of a game with a result (draws are 5-day affairs since the Antigua & Lahore tests have been excluded) has ranged between 4.2 and 4.4 days. It was 4.3 in 2006, 4.4 in 2007 & 2008 and 4.2 in 2009 [so far].
  
• West Indies and Pakistan win in the shortest period (average of 4 days), but that data is skewed because they've only won 2 & 5 tests respectively in the time period chosen. Among teams with at least 10 test wins, South Africa get things done in the shortest time - 4.1 days.
  
• The shortest tests also happen in South Africa, lasting 4.2 days on an average. Both these stats indicate that South Africa have been quite ruthless over the past 3.5 years.
  
• Australia have surprisingly taken the most time to win overall (4.6 days) and the number is identical for home games.

You can view the spreadsheet online, copy the data over to your local machine and play around with it to get more pivot reports.

The evidence does seem to suggest that more and more tests are getting over in around 4-4.5 days. So while David Morgan may not be quite right about getting to 4 day tests within the next year, I see it happening after the next 2-3 years for sure. Hopefully the changes include imposing overs restrictions on test innings, including giving toss-winning teams the option to pick the overs limit for their 1st and 2nd innings.

Of course, less than 4 years ago, this same ICC, in their infinite wisdom, staged a six day test! After the dreary draws at Lahore and Faisalabad Faisala-kabhi-nahin during India's tour of Pakistan in 2006, Pakistan's cricket establishment (captain, former players, administrators, etc.) began talking about the need for 6-day tests, especially in winter, since the weather conditions invariably interfered with play. Of course, they conveniently forgot that the Lahore and Faisalabad tests could have really gone on for perhaps another 2-3 days with no chance of a result because the fault was in the pitches used.

In other news, John Buchanan's comments in his soon-to-be-released book which focusses on the Twenty20 game, have surprisingly generated outrage in the Indian media & Indian cricket establishment. It's his book, he has a right to have an opinion. It could be right or wrong. When excerpts from Adam Gilchrist's autobiography caused a furore in India, I wrote:

Adam Gilchrist's autobiography, "True Colours: My Life", is to be released next week. As is to be expected, and as we've seen with cricketer autobiographies (Trescothick, Pietersen, Wright, Fletcher, Flintoff, Hussain or Lehmann), there is a tendency to selectively leak 'scandalous' portions of the book. The aim is to create a buzz around it, with the hope that it translates into more sales when the book is released.

Adam Gilchrist's revelations about Tendulkar are nothing but just that. He has his point of view, and others have theirs. Its his autobiography, and he has a right to choose what to say, and what not to say. If he reckons that the best way to sell his book, when there's an Australia v India series on, is to say things about India's cricketers that rile their fans, then that's his judgement.

Personally, I've never had a great opinion of Buchanan. He's said enough stupid things (blaming losing opponents for his bowlers not executing their skills & predicting that Australia's 2007 World Cup side would have ambidextrous cricketers, just to take a couple of examples). If he really does point out in the book that Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly & Laxman aren't suited to Twenty20 cricket, then is that necessarily a wrong thing to say? In any case, none of them play Twenty20 internationals anymore (Tendulkar is the only one to have played a T20 international) and Laxman probably sat out all of the 2009 IPL edition.

I wrote before the BCCI announced the 2007 Twenty20 World Cup squad that Dravid & Ganguly shouldn't be in the squad while I was ambivalent about Tendulkar. If I had to arrange the 4 batsmen in decreasing order of ability in Twenty20, the order would be Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly and Laxman. So exactly what's new about what Buchanan says? Is the outrage based on "How dare this foreigner tell us our greats aren't good enough at T20!"?

I'm guessing everyone who is outraged actually thinks the same way about Laxman and a lot of people would feel so about Ganguly & Dravid. The only questionable comment is about Tendulkar, and given he averaged 31 (strike rate 106) and 33 (strike rate 120) in the 2008 & 2009 editions of the Indian Premier League, there's enough evidence to suggest Buchanan is right! In any case, I haven't read the book, so I really can't comment on other issues.

Today at Cardiff, the venue for the first Ashes test, Ricky Ponting became the 2nd fastest to reach 11000 test runs, taking 9 innings more than Lara and one less than Tendulkar. Next in his sights - going past Border's Australian record of 11174. After that, he'll go on and get the test runs and centuries records for sure, unless injury strikes him down or he gets totally demotivated after being dismissed 8 times by Graeme Swann in this series.

Last week, India won the ODIs in West Indies to notch up 5 consecutive series wins. I was curious to find out other similar streaks and here's what I found.

• 6 by West Indies in 1985-1986
  
• 6 by Pakistan in 2001-2002
  
• 6 by New Zealand from 2007 to 2009

But the runaway victor in this category is Australia with a whopping 10 consecutive series wins between Dec 2002 and Sep 2004, including an unbeaten 2003 World Cup campaign.

I could have probably excluded series where there were lesser than 3 ODIs. But I couldn't have excluded series involving the minnow teams because they turn up at the various World Cup-like events. Even then, I don't think the results will differ too much from the ones above.

Labels: 11000, ashes, ashes 2009, autobiography, buchanan, innovation, ponting, statistic, streak, test cricket

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:47 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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