IPL works, CL doesn't?

It may be just a trifle early to pass judgment on the Champions League -- the 20-20 tournament between top domestic teams from various cricket-playing countries. But I'll do it anyway. #FAIL! #FLOP! #BORE!

Are you watching it? Is anyone? Frankly, I watch it only in passing, if I happen to be channel surfing and there's a game on. Every time there's an ad break (and we all know how often that is), I switch channels and usually forget to come back! There's actually more interesting stuff elsewhere on TV!

So what's the problem, wasn't 20-20 the big new hit form of cricket? Aren't these teams the best of the best from the cricketing world? Why is it that the Indian Premier League works, and Champions League doesn't seem to?

The game is of course the same, the rules are the same. Three of the IPL teams are playing the CL. But the problem is the other 9 teams. They may be good, but they aren't interesting! Really, the Otago Volts? Or Sussex Sharks? Even with a couple of good players each, they're not likely to bring in the average T20 fan.

With the sheer amount of money in the IPL, each of the 8 IPL teams has a galaxy of bonafide international stars, some current, some recently retired, but all of them capable of drawing the crowds. Any IPL game has at least 5-7 such stars competing. Even the relatively poor performers like the Mumbai Indians have Sachin, Sanath, Bravo, Duminy, Zaheer... sure to get people to tune in! Then there's the attraction of seeing the youngsters -- at least two in each team -- whose occasional brilliant performance adds to the romance of the sport. A Manish Pandey scoring a 100, or a Dhawal Kulkarni graduating to the Indian team on the basis of his performance against the world's stars.

Which brings us to an observation -- the success of the IPL probably lies more in its star power than in the quality of the cricket itself. Of course the presence of great cricketers also ensures a high quality of cricket. But I'd wager that the CL doesn't suffer significantly in comparison, in terms of quality. It just lacks the star power in most games. So the audience for T20 seems to be more enamoured of stars than high quality cricket, or even close finishes.

I believe T20 leagues will flourish in the future. But these will mostly be domestic leagues. Within say, England, a domestic T20 league could become popular -- well, certainly draw more than the traditional 2 men and a dog! There's a long tradition of county rivalries, and enough identification with the English national players. Similarly, Australia, South Africa and the West Indies could well have successful domestic T20 leagues. India, by the way, probably cannot -- too many domestic teams, which means not enough quality.

But the real attraction will continue to the the IPL. There's probably no room in the calendar for yet another, month-long international T20 league, with stars from all the countries participating. By virtue of being the first mover, and having the financial muscle to attract all the top stars, the IPL has grabbed hold of the eyeballs. An abbreviated international tournament like the CL has little chance of success in the next few years. As a concept, it borrows heavily from European football of course, but it's too premature. Only when the domestic leagues are firmly established with each team having a solid, reliable fan base, can the CL concept be expected to draw attention. Till then, I'll wait for innovations like the 20-20-20-20 to fructify!

20-20-20-20?

Recently, Sachin Tendulkar suggested that 50-over ODIs needed a refresh, and proposed a two-innings contest with 25 overs per innings. Of course the idea is not new, but it has caught some attention because it came from Tendulkar, and because the T20 game has thrown doubt on the future of 50-over ODIs.

One thing is clear, the day-long, 50-overs ODI game is dying, and that's a good thing. It's been losing spectator interest for a while now, and has been kept alive only by gimmicks such as super-subs, powerplays and pulled-in boundaries. Even with these gimmicks, it's only the multi-nation tournaments (not even tri-series) that attract some interest. And of course spectator interest (and TV viewership) is necessary to commercially sustain the game. While cricket boards may still feel some obligation to support a loss-making Test version of the game, there would be no such obligation towards 50-over ODIs if they stop being commercially viable.

There is of course a potential successor to ODIs in the form of T20 cricket. At least for now, it has captured the audience and thus TV revenues are a given. However, T20s suffer from one big drawback -- less airtime. The typical T20 game only lasts half a day, and thus there is lesser airtime for TV to fill with commercials, compared to the day-long ODI. So T20 is only really viable, long-term, in the form of multi-team leagues or tournaments. With a league like the IPL or a T20 World Cup, you can schedule two games a day, not overlapping of course, and thus get more commercial time. But two-team country vs. country matches are not going to be viable for long. Of course the stadium will be full, but that's not where the revenues come from.

In this backdrop comes Tendulkar's suggestion of a two-innings, 25-over game. There are of course a few tweaks possible. Should a team start each innings afresh, or would the batsman dismissed in one innings be unavailable in the next? In my opinion, the team needs to have all its batsmen available in both innings. The attractiveness of T20s arises from the fact that each team has 10 wickets to 'spend' in 20 overs, and thus batsmen can take much higher levels of risk, compared to the 10-wickets-50-overs ODI game. Splitting the innings into two, without restoring the wickets, will only have the benefit of equalising the batting conditions for the two teams, to some extent. It cannot increase the pace of the game significantly. So it's best to emulate the T20 game and enable higher risk-taking. Secondly, it may not quite be feasible to cram in a 25-25-25-25 game in a day, given the added breaks between innings. So, a 20-20-20-20 game seems more reasonable, with a lunch break betwen the two T20s, and 10-minute breaks for the changeovers.

While we're at it, there could be more tinkering with field restrictions, etc. What if field restrictions are eliminated? Given the ability to spend 10 wickets, batsmen would likely still take nearly as much risk as the T20 game, but bowlers would be more likely to take wickets, and scores would be a bit less obscene. Some encouragement to the bowlers is necessary, otherwise attacking bowling will be an extinct art.

So, what does this mean to the traditional cricket lover, the Test match fan? This may sound like blasphemy, but this comes closest to a "mini-Test"... a "one-day Test", even! Certainly it won't have the range of cricketing skills that are on display in a good Test match. But the dynamics of a two-innings game would make things interesting -- a second chance, to make up for a first-innings failure; follow-ons perhaps... And this would open up a range of other possibilities -- such as a consolidated bowling limit across two innings. A bowler would be permitted to bowl 10 overs (or 8, or whatever) in the day, but not necessarily limited to 5 in each innings. So if a bowler was in the middle of a good spell, the captain might use him up in the first innings! Or on a Sri Lankan or Indian ground, the captain might hold back his main spinner for the second innings. If powerplays are retained, the captains would have the option to split them across innings as well. Let's say each team needs to have 8 overs of fielding restrictions, but the bowling captain has the ability to split these across innings arbitrarily. The range of tactical possibilities would certainly be broader than in the T20 format. And you wouldn't need multi-nation tournaments to enable the commercial viability of the game -- bilateral series would be quite feasible.

I think this is an idea whose time has come. ODIs have certainly gotten more predictable, or too dependent on the toss, with conditions favouring one side right from the outset. I would certainly prefer a future with Tests and "mini-Tests", and possibly no T20s at all!

Book review: Sachin is God!

Just finished reading an interesting, different sort of cricket book, with the somewhat unwieldy title of "If Cricket is a Religion, Sachin is God".

At one level, it's just a biography of Sachin Tendulkar written by a couple of fans, and one might be tempted to dismiss it as a hagiography -- but it's not. It may read somewhat like a statistical analysis of his career, and those of his contemporaries. But it's much more than that -- the authors do a good job of bringing out the context to his achievements, both at the micro level ("he walked in at 14/2 with a first-innings deficit of 250 staring India in the face") as well as at the macro level ("he was probably battling not just his opponents but also some of his teammates" -- a reference to the match-fixing era). It reminded me a little of the Gavaskar vs. Richards, or even the same Tendulkar vs. Lara arguments we used to have on Usenet newsgroup rec.sport.cricket. But then the book also offers the occasional deep analysis of cricketing and social context, and an interesting comparison of Sachin's achievements with those of Vishwanathan Anand, the chess champ.

The two co-authors of the book, Vijay Santhanam and Shyam Balasubramanian, are both IIT + IIM-A graduates who describe themselves as big Sachin fans, but also "analysts". Both are of course followers of that religion, but they try hard to provide objective analysis. Starting with their analysis of Indian cricket fans and fanatics, and an attempt to explain why cricket has taken on a religious form in India, the book moves on to Sachin's career.

The 20 year career is neatly divided into phases -- the "wunderkind phase", the rise, the fall, and then the resurrection. Apart from bald statistics, the authors provide lots of quotes from cricketers, commentators and journalists. They analyse the criticism of Sachin by the likes of Ian Chappell, Sanjay Manjrekar and various Cricinfo columnists. They counter it with data, as well as opposing opinion -- for example, Ian Chappell's comments on Sachin's 241* at Sydney are contrasted with Shane Warne's, on the same innings.

The authors have made extensive use of Cricinfo's Statsguru to generate their data. One interesting phenomenon they seem to have uncovered is what they call "the thirty-three effect". Basically, around the age of 33 (give or take a year), many batsmen appear to undergo a drastic slump. This is usually preceded by a monster year or two, and equally interestingly, is followed by a reversion to mean. This effect is startlingly demonstrated using numbers for top batsmen like Gavaskar, Richards, Boycott, Sobers, Hayden, Dravid, Miandad, etc. Needless to mention, Sachin also suffered a slump around the age of 33, which also coincided with his injury problems.

Somewhat less surprising is the demonstration of just how critical Sachin is to India's chances of winning, of how rarely India win when he's out of the team. Again the authors use statistics to compare just how much Sachin has to lift his game for India to win -- how much higher his average is when India wins, vs. his career average. In contrast, the numbers for the likes of Ponting, Hayden etc. don't change a lot -- because they are ably supported by several teammates in the lineup. There is plenty more analysis, such as the performances of Sachin and his contemporary batting greats against Australia, or the Aussies against India, etc. In each case, using data as well as context, the authors demonstrate how Sachin is simply a class apart. The only comparable batsman in the last two decades is Lara, but he falls short of Sachin on consistency and adaptability. My only quibble is that the authors have perhaps focused a bit more on ODI statistics than Tests.

For a Sachin fan, it's fun to relive some of his great innings through this book -- amazing memories like the second-innings ton vs Australia at Chennai when he tamed Warne, and painful memories like the 136* at the same ground vs Pakistan, when India fell just short in the run-chase. Interestingly, there is no discussion of Sachin the captain, and hardly any mention of his bowling. The book is almost purely about his batting, and there too, it doesn't linger on his style, his technique or his range of strokes. It's all about data, team and social context.

The book ends with a touching story about one of the authors -- Vijay Santhanam -- who suffered a stroke, but willed himself into recovering in time to make it to an India match at the stadium in Mohali. There are also interesting personal anecdotes from the authors -- childhood hero worship, college hostel arguments, or changing hotels because they didn't have the cable channel telecasting the match!

All in all, a good read for Sachin fans (that's everybody, right?). The book is published by Harper Collins, and has a cover price of Rs.195.

Twoodies and One-tup catches

A lot has been written about local cricket in India, and especially Mumbai. Some good books include:

• A Maidan View -- The Magic of Indian Cricket, by Mihir Bose
• Guts & Glory -- the Bombay Cricket Story, by Sandeep Bamzai
• Wickets in the East, by Ramchandra Guha

These books however tend to focus on the (loosely) organized cricket on the maidans, the storied cricketing grounds like Shivaji Park in Mumbai or the Maidan in Kolkata. There is another, somewhat different cricketing experience that many of us went through as kids -- gully cricket.

Maidan cricket is played in the traditional fashion -- 11-a-side, kids in whites (even if dirty), proper cricket equipment (even if dilapidated), an umpire or two (even if biased)... It's usually organized, with teams playing in some sort of league or tournament, representing clubs, schools or companies.

In contrast, gully cricket is much more ad hoc. The teams are formed by identifying two captains, who then take turns, picking from the available players until there aren't any left. Pity the poor sod who's the last to be picked! The rules are decided, or made up on the fly. Gully cricket has its own lingo as well -- probably varying from place to place. In Mumbai for example, we'd decide whether one-tup was out or not! What this means is that if a fielder takes a "catch" after the first bounce, the batsman would be out. This is often necessary while playing in limited spaces, or in gullies where regular catches are hard to come by! Sometimes we'd switch to "one-tup out" midway during the game, because it was getting dark and we wanted to get the game over with quickly!

The playing area is often wierdly-shaped -- kids will of course seize upon any available space to play! That also necessitates a creative definition of the boundaries. In our colony for example, our playing area had a very short boundary (literally, a boundary wall) on the off side, and a more acceptable boundary on the leg side. Reaching the off-side boundary therefore wasn't worth four runs, it was decided -- two was all you'd get. Hitting this boundary was termed as a twoodie, i.e. "2D", short for "two runs declared"! Depending on the distance, you could similarly have onedies and threedies! In the rare case where there was actually an umpire, he'd signal a twoodie just like a boundary, but with two fingers outstretched.

Another cricketing space in our colony was a small, concrete-paved square patch next to the local temple, with a small boundary wall all around it -- barely a foot high. We'd play underarm cricket (slow bowling only), one-tup out of course, with this strange rule designed to deter hard hitting -- a sixer that landed on the road around this square was perfectly legitimate (a sixdee?), but if it was hit too hard and went across the road into the adjacent garden, you were out! Certainly made for some wierd lobbed shots that needed accuracy. They had to be hit long enough to evade the fielders near the boundary wall, but not too hard lest they cross the narrow strip of road!

An outsider would come across more strange lingo... jaa, sirf played kar, for example. That's advice given to a young kid going out to bat in a tough situation -- go, just "played" it! No that's not just a grammatical mistake. I think it originated thus: in Test cricket, whenever a batsman played a good defensive stroke, the radio/TV commentators would say "That's well played, bat and pad close together, etc. etc.". I remember hearing that over and over again from Iftikhar Ahmed and Chishti Mujahid for example, the Pakistani TV commentators, during the 1978-79 series. Somehow, "well played" came to represent a defensive stroke, just keeping the ball out, and then got shortened to "played".

Then there was the "connection out" rule, for run outs. This came into being because you rarely have one full set of stumps in gully cricket, let alone two. So the non-striker's end doesn't have any stumps. They're substituted with either a brick or stones, or merely a pile of footwear! Now if there's a runout attempted at the non-striker's end, the "connection" rule says that you can collect the thrown ball and step on the brick/chappals, baseball style, to effect the dismissal. You've provided the "connection" between the ball and the stumps! Just as major-league baseball players (and their coaches) get into arguments with umpires about whether the connection was properly made, we'd have all sorts of arguments and the occasional fight too! Although of course, we knew nothing about baseball in those days...

I'm sure there were other such quirks that I'm now forgetting... I hope to be reminded of those when my kid grows up and starts playing some serious gully cricket! Till then...