Casualty of T20

After a fortnight(well not even a fortnight), Indian cricket team is back in the business in the West Indies for the 4 ODIs. First of all, whats the sense of having 4 ODIs. You should either have 3 matches or 5 matches so that the series is decided under all circumstances. But I guess 3 is too less and 5 is too much. Thats why the boards have settled for 4 matches. Or it could be that the rhetoric of everybody is a winner is catching up. I once read a nice quote about it. It said that whoever said that statement must have been a loser. Well enough of crap now. I am digressing from the topic.

So here I am in my room following the match on Cricinfo. Live matches on the TV is a luxury that we can't avail in the hostels. Its been quite a long time since we had an ODI. Firstly, there was the IPL and then the T20 world cup. And now, I really can't feel the passion with which I used to follow the ODIs earlier. You look at the scoreboard and see 80 runs in 16 odd overs. It looks so slow. 50 overs have suddenly started to seem as too many. And devoting 7 hours for a single game seems like a waste. It is too early to say but it appears to me that ODI would eventually lose to T20. The calculated and patient 50 over game is really not a match to the fast, roller coster ride of a T20 game. ODIs can become one sided. In T20, you only need one good over to turn the game in your favour. The games are very often quite close. The margin of victory is 15-20 runs.

Test cricket, however, I feel would remain unaffected by this. Test cricket has its different niche. It has its own fans and followers. It was always a different type of cricket, one where the premium was always on skill and stamina. As said by many, it would always remain one the greatest spectacles of sport. Althought, the growing number of T20 matches have definitely reduced the frequency of Test mataches played every year. But neverthless, it has maintained its charm. And as for the ODIs, only the time could tell now where does it future lies.