INDIA against Sri Lanka took a fair chunk of my attention this week, largely via the excellence of Cricinfo’s match commentary service as I hopped on and off planes around Asia.
Two great batting line ups, Rahul Dravid proving his excellence again, the Sri Lankan talent factory still unearthing gems. Yet, the game was played Monday to Friday during working hours for both countries and then a flat track to reduce or possibly remove the chance of a result.
All this talk in the international cricket world about protecting Test cricket, and then you schedule a game Monday to Friday, when the majority of the population can’t sit in front of a TV for any length of time. The timing has also to be one of the reasons for empty seats at Ahmedabad. Why can’t Test matches be made to include Saturday and Sunday play if cricket boards really want to have audiences for the games?
It’s also the Fifa beach soccer World Cup in Dubai this week. Its about a mile from the Ten Sports office but I won’t be going. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I increasingly like my sport to be legitimate and traditional.
Beach football is fun to play, and fun to watch but I just don’t care who wins. I’d bracket it with boxing for increasingly obscure titles, minor ATP tennis, a lot of horse racing and charity/exhibition events in any sport as the events that I just can’t get excited about.
That’s why it’s great to look forward to a December full of real Test cricket in India, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand with all the top 8 nations in action.
It’s particularly good to see Pakistan back in Test action as they’ve played so little Test cricket in the last couple of years.
Their home series with the Kiwis is actually being played away in New Zealand and they seem set to be travelling for much of the year. Their next home series is to be played in England when Pakistan take on Australia for two Tests and two T20 games in July.
The constant moving and alteration of schedules by the PCB are challenges for a broadcaster, but at least the Test matches in England work well for us, with the games now set to be played in prime time for an Asian audience. The expatriate Pakistani population should hopefully also ensure good crowds and atmosphere, which is normally the issue with neutral venues.
On the subject of rare sporting events, keep an eye out this month for India and Pakistan playing each other in hockey’s Champions Challenge. It’s a good warm up for the Hero Honda World Cup in Delhi in February and let’s hope it can be the start of a good run of form for the Asian nations. India doing well in a World Cup in the country is exactly what world hockey needs.
The author is COO, Taj Television Ltd.
