cricket with balls

As I sat and watched last night’s one day international between Australia and India, which concluded in an inglorious wash out, I wondered whether the direction interantional cricket is taking, is a positive one……

Hello to all of you out there in Uncle J-Rod’s cricket blogging world. If this column is any good you will come to know me as Sime. Uncle J-Rod’s parol officer when it comes to upholding the traditions and values of this great game we know as cricket. A traditionalist at heart, I love to watch pure cricket were all skills are on display and the correct techniques are implemented or at the very least that is the intention of the relevant player involved.

My favourite players over the journey have included such lead by example types as Alan Border, Steve Waugh and my current favourite player the immortal Ricky (always be Ricky to me) Ponting.

Which leads me to the topic of my first post. Too much cricket……..never could be too much cricket, I hear you say. Well not for the fans like you and me, who will tune in at anytime of day or night. I’m refering to the players. What on earth is the purpose of this 7 game series that began in India overnight, that I spoke of earlier? India competed in the Twenty20 World Cup final on Monday night in South Africa and less than a week later they are involved in a pointless one day home series which lasts three weeks.

Television committments I hear you say. Well it pains me to see a champion of our game, the great Sachin Tendulkar, in the decline he is, due partly to age, but mainly to an unrealistic, demanding schedule of mainly one day games which have worn away at his body, his confidence and robbed us of a few extra years of watching this once in a life time talent.

On the opposing side of last nights contest I wonder how long players like Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist can sustain this amount of cricket. Not only that, this amount of cricket makes it difficult to hold solid form and can cause many of these limit overs contests to degenerate into uncompetive farces.

One day specialists have emerged to rest or replace class players and this has resulted in the standard of international player to drop considerable from what it was 20 years ago. Outside of Australia, the standard of the rest of the Test playing nations in the last 2 years or so hasn’t been good enough.

In my next blog, if Uncle J-Rod will have me back, I am going to explore this topic in a little more depth.