The Straight Drive

Cricket is a game dominated by batsman, the rules favor him, the crowd supports him, television camera follows him, sponsors follow him, etc. :) I think the idea is pretty much clear now, we love to watch Batsman score lots of runs. Of all the illustrous shots that can be played by batsman on varied surfaces the shot that looks most elegant and tests batting skills is the - 'Straight Drive'.

To play a convinsing straight drive the batsman should have great body balance. Play the ball late and hit the middle of the bat (about six inches from bottom). The key to playing a good straight drive is that batsman's weight is on the front leg and the momentum is forward.

A few tips for playing this shot to good effect:-

--> Keep your head still and in line with the Bat, make sure you don't fall outside the line of your bat

--> Make sure the front toe points down the line of the pitch, watch the ball come right through and the impact with the bat should be below the eye line. The body must be slightly turned and the shoulders opened out to allow the free swing of the bat.

--> Follow-through of this shot is very important as you look straight back to the bowler and command respect.

A straight drive is a good arsenal for modern day cricketing combat as when the field is spread you can still get a boundary or a two using this glorious shot.

Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar, both know as Little Masters of their era, played this shot to perfection. Among other graceful exploiters of this shot are Rahul Dravid, Graeme Smith, Ricky Ponting, Kevin Pietersen.

Twenty20 Good or Bad for Cricket??

Twenty20 is the newest form of Cricket. It is a cricket match with maximum of 20 overs per-side to face. This version of cricket, originally introduced in the United Kingdom is characterised by hard hit shots and fast paced action. The duration of an entire Twenty20 match is only around 3 hours (comparable with other popular sports like football, basketball, baseball, tennis, etc.)

Twenty20 came to international arena in middle of 2005, following which some countries accepted it whole-heartily while others showed it a cold shoulder. However, September 2007 will witness the first ever World-cup competition of Twenty20. For the readers in US, it really is a world-cup as countries from 5 continents will be competing, unlike the American Football Superbowl which is not played or watched outside of North America.

Twenty20 brings a lot of good as well as bad to the game of cricket. Below I discuss some of these gains and losses and try to figure out which outweighs the other. Lets start with the goodies:

(1) Brings a younger breed of cricketers to the stage, spectators won't have to watch the same players playing international cricket all the time. Variety is always good, more to watch, more to love, more to follow.

(2) Reduces the duration of the game and makes more people watch it. One does not need to use up a whole working day to enjoy the game and have a result. (winner/looser)

(3) Extremely entertaining as there is action happening almost every delivery, if not between deliveries too.

(4) Makes players play a lot more shots which may rub into the One-day (50 over matches) too and we might see even bigger scores in ODI's.

(5) Players with average skills can excel as not much scope to test out players batting or bowling skills. This brings a chance for all the second tier ODI teams like Canada, Netherlands, Ireland, Scotland, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, etc to pull off miraculous wins (or upsets) against the bigger brothers. Honestly, until your national team wins, the sport does not catch fire in the country. Also, Twenty20 can prove wonders to a country like USA who is yet to embrace the game of cricket. Market of Twenty20 in US could be phenomenal as people here watch more physical sports (football, basketball, etc.) than mental sports (chess, billiards, etc.)

(6) Provides a new platform for World leader spot. Current era of International Cricket is dominated by Australia (heavily) both in One day International (ODI) and Test Match scheme. Twenty20 may see a new dominant nation which could give Australia a run for their money. I do not have anything personal against Australia. I think they are a brilliant team which deserves the success they are getting. However, for a game to be competitive and invoke interest of masses it is important not to have one team be so dominant.

These are some of the pluses from the Twenty20 flavor of game. With every advantage you gain there are prices you have to pay. So lets understand the shortcomings of this version of game.

(1) It takes away from cricket the elegance of 'Test Match cricket' and shortens the skills required for a One Day International (ODI) 50 over game. One day game is considerably quicker than the 5 day version of Test cricket and brought to cricket strategies and skills suited for 50 over match. This include playing attacking shots of first 15 overs (now 20 with power play3), stricter rules of bowling wides, spinners look to restrict run scoring rather than pick up wickets, pitches are laid to be flat and run-feasts for crowd to enjoy, and many such changes.
Twenty20 amplifies these changes to the next level. Duration of play in an ODI between the overs 20-40 was seeing a lot of players just happy to nudge the ball around and pick up singles to build partnerships. During the last 10 overs with wickets in hand teams start throwing their bats around for quick runs. With just 20 overs to bat these strategies of building partnerships and innings has gone out of the window. Every delivery needs to be scored off or accounted for. On most occasions in a Twenty20 game a run-a-ball is not good enough. Scoring rates have to be around 7.5 - 9.0 per over.

(2) Physical strength and stamina become more important than technical skills to excel in the game. Traditionally cricket has involved a lot of mind, personality, endurance, attitude to succeed. Legends of the game have been excellent students of cricket, who learn from past and form plans to adapt under different playing conditions. Twenty20 does not provide enough room to build strategies to bowl an opposition out, it does not give a batsman time to watch and study any bowler, the spin or swing of it and adapt accordingly. It requires all the homework to be done before the start of the game. Pretty much like American football or soccer.

(3) Players may hamper their technique in lieu of making quick runs. Since every delivery must yield in runs, at times batsmen go for a shot which is not on. He may not be in position to make a shot nor may have time to execute one and still ends up hitting the shot just out of sheer pressure to keep scoring. At times these gimmicks stick around with a batsman and corrupt their technique. Now when he goes back to Test cricket these temptations to make shots result in faulty shot selection and exposed weaknesses. Eventually, this will affect the quality of players and that of the game for 'Test Match Cricket'.

(4) Assuming immense popularity of Twenty20 they can wipe out ODI realm of cricket. If more and more people come to watch 20 over matches, fewer people will have patience to watch 50 overs (game takes about 8 hours to complete, one full work day). ODI's have had a lot of history ever since they picked up in 1980's. This player history, performance statistics, international records, Star status of former players will all go down the drain if crowd no longer appreciates ODIs.

Above are my views on the new version of cricket. Based on my discussion above if I were to make a call as to whether Twenty20 is Good or Bad for cricket, with a heavy heart I would make a call that Twenty20 is the future of cricket. Heavy heart is due to the fact that I enjoy the elegance of cricket and ODIs which Twenty20 will overrun, however at the same time it will definitely work wonders to popularize the game. It will spread cricket to newer avenues and give it new flavor which is clearly what doctor ordered for World cricket.

So Hail Twenty20 and get soaked in it's fever as soon as you can. For all those people who do not know what Twenty20 is yet please check out the link below which gives a good overview of this game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty20

Signing off here with a promise to bring more and more interesting topics for people to read .... till then soak up in Twenty20 fever and pour in your comments.

The Legend of 'Legends'

Every game has Legends - cricket is no different. Superstars of the past who graced the game with their brilliance will always be revered for their contributions. To name a few, Sir Don Baradman, Sir Gary Sobers, Vivian Richards, Sir Ian Botham, Sunil Gavaskar, Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar, and many more.

It is intersting to analyze how the audience treats a Legend. Solid consistent performances tend to graduate a player from the ranks of ordinary to 'extra' ordinary. Technique, mental strength, patience, endurance, intellect are trademark qualities which separates a good player from a Legend.

A player never self-acclaims to be a Legend, it's the people and media who elevate the player to higher strata. With greatness comes great expectations, the challenges grow too, bigger the player bigger is the stage required to perform. It all works fine till the hunger stays alive within the player. The more he wants, for whatever reasons, the more is determination, more is the effort, more is the success. After a long, successful career a problem that a great player face is finding reasons to motivate themselves. This is an critical phase of every great players' career. How much is enough? Have you achieved what you could? Is there a challenge out there which you want to take on before calling it a day?

To name a few players going through this patch in recent International cricket are : The master blaster Sachin Tendulkar, the elegant southpaw Ganguly, a great leader Stephen Flemming, the lazy touch of Inzamam, the spectacular Hayden, a dark Horse Sanath Jayasuriya, a spinning wizard Murali, a gutsy captain Ricky Ponting, a lone warrior Chanderpaul.

These players though not all in the same category are still tremendous contributors to the game of cricket. They are all nearing their end of careers (some are accused of being past it).

Question that these players ask themselves every day/game is when is the day I will make way for a young warrior? For some lucky ones the timing works just fine, Brian Lara, Glen McGrath, Shane Warne, Arivinda DeSilva, Steve Waugh, Damien Martyn, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, all announcing retirement after World Cup or a major series.

Also it is worth debating whether or not is it fair to great players to face critics at the fag end of their illustrous careers? After contributing so much to the game what do they get in return? Same people who made them Legends are now wanting them to be dropped from national teams. Sachin Tendulkar, deservs and often recieves a standing welcome to any cricketing field, was booed off the ground by his home crowd at Mumbai, India. Is that fair?

Maybe not. Having said that it is important and often tricky for great players to realize when is a good time to walk off with heads held high. Being an ardent follower of the game I do hope some of the names mentioned above do make these decisions right as and when they come.