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T20 WORLD CUP | What secrets does the under-cover Wankhede pitch hold?

admin — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 15:36:00 +0000

India’s captain Suryakumar Yadav, head coach Gautam Gambhir and Ramesh Mhamunkar, chief curator of Wankhede Stadium, near the playing surface on Tuesday, March 3, 2026.
| Photo Credit: EMMANUAL YOGINI

Twenty-four days after launching its Men’s T20 World Cup title defence with a scratchy win over the United States, Suryakumar Yadav’s men returned to the Wankhede Stadium on Tuesday night — this time with a semifinal against England looming large.

As the Indian squad went through its fielding drills under lights, the curators quietly covered the 22-yard strip that will dictate fortunes on Thursday. Two days out, the surface wore a greener look than is customary at the Wankhede — even by First-Class standards, let alone a T20 International.

With temperatures climbing steadily over the past fortnight, the decision to retain a healthy grass cover was understandable, a protective measure to prevent the pitch from drying out and breaking up. The pertinent question now is how much of that grass will be shaved off before match time.

Interestingly, while head coach Gautam Gambhir took a close look at the strip before it was covered, none of the Indian players ambled across to inspect it. Perhaps they are content to wait until match day, drawing cues from the two fixtures already played on this surface earlier in the tournament.

The red-soiled surface slated for Thursday’s semifinal was used for England’s clash against West Indies on February 11 and the Italy-Nepal game the following day. On both occasions, it offered assistance to spinners, particularly as the games progressed. Yet, much has changed since then — not least the weather and the stakes.

India’s preference for truer, flatter decks has been indulged through the Super Eights. Whether that pattern continues at the semifinal stage remains to be seen. For now, beneath the covers and the coastal humidity, the Wankhede strip holds its secrets close — waiting to reveal them on the biggest night of India’s campaign.

Published – March 03, 2026 09:06 pm IST

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Bindra was the persuader Indian cricket misses today

admin — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 19:00:00 +0000

With the passing of Inderjit Singh Bindra, a link with a revolution in cricket that shifted the power base from England to India has been severed. For so long has India’s influence lasted and so profound has its impact been that it’s easy to forget their ascendancy is less than four decades old.

In the mid-1980s, N.K.P. Salve, Bindra and Jagmohan Dalmiya proposed that the World Cup, hosted thrice by England now be shifted to India and Pakistan.

The administrators dangled the carrot that the BCCI continues to dangle — money. They promised much more of it, and took advantage of the rule then that allowed associate members one vote each (Test nations had two). This meant that the 18 associate members had a big say since the full members were just seven.

Dalmiya and Bindra as a team were the spit and polish of Indian cricket, the enforcer and the planner. It was a combination that could be seen on the field of play too. Think Javed Miandad and Imran Khan, or Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar. Or Ian Botham and Mike Brearley.

The 1987 World Cup was only the start. The International Cricket Council, established in 1909, was a boys’ club run from the offices of the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club), and sharing a secretary with it.

The MCC President automatically became chairman of the ICC. With founding member Australia, England enjoyed the power of veto. Bindra and Dalmiya set about upsetting this cozy arrangement.

Revolution complete

In 1993, the revolution was complete. The veto was abolished, India co-hosted the World Cup again three years later, and the first sniffs of the enormous power of television rights were felt.

India had many advantages — a television audience in the millions, a marketplace for consumer goods that needed advertising between overs, companies willing to spend on advertising, and a team or great players who drew the eyeballs. The economy had opened, bringing all these elements together to India’s advantage.

Where India now miss the presence of a diplomat and persuader (in the gentler sense of the term, not as in Hollywood) like Bindra is obvious with the Bangladesh fracas. Whatever that country’s political reasons for pulling out of the T20 World Cup in India next month, Bindra would not have allowed things to come to this pass. One telephone call would have made the difference.

Brinkmanship is useful when you have less to lose, and in this case Bangladesh had more, both financially and cricket-wise. Pakistan’s current stance in support isn’t likely to end well for them either.

The 1996 situation where India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka hosted the World Cup is unimaginable now. In 1986, when India’s Operation Brasstacks, mobilised troops along the border, and Pakistan mobilised too, it was Bindra who persuaded Pakistan’s military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq to visit India to ease tension. Sometimes those ruling cricket (Bindra was a bureaucrat, not a politician) can do good too!

The Los Angeles Times reported: “as the air bristled with tough talk, the Pakistani cricket team arrived for its scheduled, months-long, series of matches with the Indian team.

And almost as quickly as a fast bowler gets the ball to the stumps, the war-talk evaporated. Diplomats quickly signed an agreement under which both sides would pull back troops from their shared frontier. The tension eased measurably.”

Self-image

A cricket team reflects its nation’s self-image. And this self-image can be a treacherous thing, wanting to assert itself in all situations, grave as well as inconsequential, and everything in between.

The self-image changes according to circumstance too. We seem to be currently a muscle-flexing, imperious people, especially when faced with those patently weaker. Bangladesh are being taught a lesson which they knew all along.

Then there’s the International Cricket Council which says shifting the Bangladesh matches out of India “could set a precedent that would jeopardise the sanctity of future ICC events and undermine its neutrality as a global governing body.” This is rich, considering that the Chairman of the ICC is the son of India’s Home Minister, and venues have been shifted before — the so-called ‘hybrid’ model — to suit India.

Indian cricket misses an administrator like Bindra, the man who saw the big picture.

Published – January 28, 2026 12:30 am IST

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World T20: Common sense and decency can still win the day

admin — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 19:08:00 +0000

While India and Bangladesh wait to see who will blink first, the International Cricket Council has made it clear that there is no security threat in India. This is Bangladesh’s reason for not wishing to come to India for their World T20 matches commencing next month. It has weakened the former’s case while strengthening the latter’s resolve.

Bangladesh’s hasty announcement followed India’s hasty announcement to drop their bowler Mustafizur Rahman from the IPL after he had been picked in the auction. Storms have a way of spreading beyond the teacups where they originate. As the larger country with greater resources and a higher ranking, India might have been expected to act with better understanding and tolerance. But the Board of Control for Cricket in India allowed itself to be bullied by the government into dropping Mustafizur.

The player had nothing to do with the violence in Bangladesh which claimed Hindu lives. Nor should India’s foreign policy be decided by trolls on social media — it was a message here that set the ball rolling. But such niceties tend to be ignored in the ‘mine-is-bigger-than-yours’ type of street fight. National pride is often so brittle.

Bangladesh fans have been allegedly manhandled in India in recent years — in Kanpur at a Test and in Pune during the World Cup. The stories kept changing, however. The potential for crowd trouble exists anywhere in the world. Playing in southern India reduces that possibility, but the ICC has to make that call.

Brinkmanship

Brinkmanship comes easily to governments and sports bodies (sometimes they are the same). It doesn’t take a professional logician to work out that the side which has more to lose will ultimately give in. Bangladesh are ranked tenth in the world while India are No.1, so the arithmetic is not difficult. Still, there might be political mileage to be gained from standing up to the bigger country. Confronting the weaker in similar style does not carry the same traction.

Former Bangladesh skipper Tamim Iqbal’s has been a rare voice of reason in all this. He has urged his cricket board to avoid being driven by “public emotion” while deciding, and to be aware that a wrong decision could have an “impact 10 years down the line”.

Bangladesh can point to the fact that every time India refused to play an ICC tournament in Pakistan, they were allowed to play their matches in either the UAE or Sri Lanka. But that will not do them much good. To equate sporting responses with national pride (India have done this too, but they are confident of getting away with it) is both silly and dangerous. And if politicians — in this case the advisor to Bangladesh’s sports ministry — take a hard stance, they do their country’s sport much harm.

The situation should never have been allowed to get this far. The BCCI, its arm twisted by the government, should not have in turn twisted the arm of Kolkata Knight Riders and Shah Rukh Khan into dropping Mustafizur.

Wrong strategy

If Bangladesh had a genuine issue with security, a quiet word with the BCCI and the ICC might led to a shift in the venues of their matches. Such diplomacy should be conducted behind closed doors and not in the full glare of publicity for two reasons. One, it tends to raise the temperature till the issue becomes unbearably hot. Two, when the decision goes against one side, it makes them look ridiculous. A series of wrongs do not make a right.

The World T20 commences on February 7, so common sense and decency might still win the day. The ICC being neither a proactive body nor one that reacts quickly to developing situations, has been kowtowing to the BCCI for so long that most do not see these as separate entities. If the BCCI keeps quiet, it will be up to the Bangladesh Cricket Board to ignore the perceived insult, forget national pride and change its mind. There will be talk of cricket winning, of India’s kindness and Bangladesh’s ability to see the bigger picture.

Whatever happens can be spun to favour one or both of the countries or indeed the ICC. After all, finding scapegoats is a pastime for the apparently slighted.

Published – January 14, 2026 12:38 am IST

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Cricket is collateral damage in a game of political expediency

admin — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 18:59:00 +0000

For so long has the Board of Control for Cricket in India been the bully of international cricket, it shouldn’t be a surprise that it is equally the bully of domestic cricket too. By asking the Kolkata Knight Riders to sack Bangladesh’s Mustafizur Rahman after he had been picked for the IPL, the BCCI showed it was more concerned with pleasing its masters in the government than the sport it was elected to protect and preserve.

Seven players from Bangladesh were in the auction, one was picked. Then came the troll. It was a delicious opportunity for a politician to strike at Bangladesh (ahead of the elections in Bengal) and a prominent Muslim at home in the same action. He was like a batter who edges for runs and then sees an overthrow add another four to his score.

Shah Rukh Khan is the face of KKR, so by the logic of the troll he becomes a traitor for choosing a player from Bangladesh, a troubled country where a Hindu man was killed in ongoing violence.

How Bangladesh treat their minorities seems to have come as a shock to the politician who knows all about treating minorities at home.

Bangladesh in response have asked the International Cricket Council to move their matches in next month’s T20 World Cup away from India while deciding the IPL will not be telecast in their country. Mustafizur, Shah Rukh Khan, private franchises, the game of cricket itself have become collateral damage in a game of political expediency.

India provided asylum for deposed Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina while the funeral of another Prime Minister, Khaleda Zia, was attended by the external affairs minister. The troll seems to have missed these events.

In a fix

The BCCI’s action — it is an arm of the ruling party after all — has put Indian sport in a fix. This is the country that hopes to host the 2036 Olympics. By then how many countries might upset the authorities and how loud will the calls be for banning these for perceived slights? Shah Rukh Khan will be 70 then.

This is not to say that sport and politics do not mix. That would be naive. Boycotts on moral grounds (apartheid in South Africa) have shown that when nations stand together, change can happen.

But this Bangladesh issue has not been thought through at a time when India are trying to mend fences with their neighbours. Depending on which side of the political divide you are, this is either a victory for India’s foreign policy, or yet another neighbourhood disaster.

Not for the first time, cricket has to bear the burden of political posturing. This means either that sport is not important, and therefore can be a substitute for low-grade politics, or it is so important that only cricket can carry the intended message, whatever that is. But sport does not reshape the world, it merely reflects it.

And what it is reflecting now is not pretty. The weaponisation of sport or entertainment or justice or religion or any sphere of human activity never is. Bullying is usually a sign of insecurity.

When things go wrong, cricket is blamed for failing where it was never equipped to succeed. It is forced to wear the cloak of failure that politicians shed with alacrity. Cricket has carried more weight than it asked for because it can be a shared language.

The ICC, an arm of the BCCI and by extension the Indian government, is probably awaiting instructions. In the past, it was India who championed the entry of their neighbours Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh into international cricket. For long Afghanistan used India as ‘home’ ground because of the situation there. We can call none of these countries our friends now. Cricket diplomacy cuts both ways — it strengthens ties (its expected role) as easily as it divides nations when handled negatively.

The whole affair exposes the dangers of politicians running sports. And of foreign policy based on social media posts. When the ‘might is right’ approach — Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! — is the prevailing orthodoxy, it will take time to appreciate that actually doing right constitutes might. That strength flows from fairness.

Published – January 07, 2026 12:29 am IST

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BCCI vs BCB: Cricket is collateral damage in a game of political expediency

admin — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 18:59:00 +0000

File picture of Bangladesh’s Mustafizur Rahman celebrating a wicket during a T20I against India
| Photo Credit: Emmanual Yogini

Shah Rukh Khan is the face of KKR, so by the logic of the troll he becomes a traitor for choosing a player from Bangladesh, a troubled country where a Hindu man was killed in ongoing violence.

How Bangladesh treat their minorities seems to have come as a shock to the politician who knows all about treating minorities at home.

In a fix

This is not to say that sport and politics do not mix. That would be naive. Boycotts on moral grounds (apartheid in South Africa) have shown that when nations stand together, change can happen.

And what it is reflecting now is not pretty. The weaponisation of sport or entertainment or justice or religion or any sphere of human activity never is. Bullying is usually a sign of insecurity.

Published – January 07, 2026 12:29 am IST

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Two-day Tests are nearly as ridiculous as two-Test series

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 18:39:00 +0000

How many agencies does it take to destroy Test cricket? If the current Ashes series is indication, it would involve the local administrators, the International Cricket Council, and the players themselves. Not since the 19th century have two Tests in a series ended within two days. The track for the first Test in Perth was adjudged “very good” by the ICC while Melbourne’s was declared “unsatisfactory.”

Home wins have, in the points system of the World Test Championship — points as a percentage of the total available — become so important that wickets are prepared unabashedly for home bowlers. Still, Australia took a 3-0 lead within 11 days without their best attack of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon all playing together.

England won in Melbourne, but something important was missed. The wicket improved as the match progressed; however, neither team had the batters with the defence to take the match into the fourth or fifth day. The exception, England’s Joe Root, slightly off balance followed the ball and edged in the first innings, while in the second the DRS left it to the ‘umpire’s call’ for leg before.

That England made the highest total of the match to win suggested it wasn’t the 10mm grass on the wicket that was solely responsible for the result. Melbourne had more grass on it for the 2021-22 Ashes Test (11mm), as well as the New Zealand Test of 2019-20 (12mm). Those matches took three and four days respectively.

The 90,000-plus fans in the stadium seemed less inclined to blame the pitch, cheering wildly when opener Ben Duckett played forward defence in the midst of a sword-fight of an innings as England approached a win. At least some of them might have craved a defensive shot with the same keenness with which others screamed for a six.

Not an easy task

The pitch could not have been easy; but Test cricket was never meant to be easy. It is a test as much of technique and temperament as of spirit and the passion to stick it out. In a sense, the batters were playing for Test cricket itself besides their respective teams. Two-day Tests are nearly as ridiculous as two-Test series, although teams often prefer the latter thanks to the points system.

Flaws in the WTC system — and the Ashes has highlighted them — have been pointed out before. ‘Context’, that magic word, cannot be the excuse for teams not playing every other or indeed the same number of matches. Two fundamental changes suggest themselves.

One, split the 12 Test-playing teams into two divisions with the odd-ranked teams in one and the even-ranked in the other. This will eliminate the need for promotions and demotions or one strong group carrying the weak group. The god of telecasts will be propitiated too. If the two-Test series goes, it might be worth considering a three-year cycle rather than the current two.

Compromises with franchise cricket will have to be made. Recently South Africa’s Tabraiz Shamsi took his cricket board to court for denying a No Objection Certificate to play a T20 league abroad. He won the case, to give other boards something to think about.

The CEO of Cricket Australia who was suggesting recently that only Australia, India and England should play Test cricket is now talking about balancing “commercial imperatives and performance” after the Melbourne Test. Losing ten million dollars over a two-day Test can do that to an administrator.

More pertinently, Aussie great Greg Chappell wrote in ESPNcricinfo, “Two Tests failed to reach day three not due to superior skill but a glaring absence of desire. Batters slashed wildly, abandoning technique for bravado, as if playing their ‘natural game’ excused capitulation. They let down predecessors who bled for this rivalry; they shortchanged fans who braved the holiday heat; they betrayed their own generation by forsaking cricket’s core tenets – playing each ball on merit, scrapping for every run, enduring bruises for the greater good. I cannot believe any player left the field thinking they had given their all over those paltry sessions.”

In a match where the highest score was 46, nearly every dismissal diminished the game. Send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for Test cricket.

Published – December 31, 2025 12:09 am IST

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It’s ugly, but mock battles on field preferable to real ones off it

admin — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 19:00:00 +0000

In his much-quoted essay The Sporting Spirit, George Orwell wrote, “Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard for rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words, it is war minus the shooting.” Over the years, an India-Pakistan cricket match has been characterised as war minus the shooting, but seldom by the players, and rarely manifested on the field of play.

When cricket relations resumed after 17 years and India toured Pakistan in 1978, the teams were led by Bishan Bedi and Mushtaq Mohammed, two contemporary greats who played together for Northamptonshire in England. They were firm friends. Yet even in that atmosphere, Cambridge-educated Majid Khan was quoted as saying, “Pakistan is ready for a 1,000-year war with India”. Those days there was no PR machinery that rushed to the aid of players to translate their plain English into palatable prose. No one attempted to interpret that to explain Majid meant “cricket war”, since sports contests were seen as proxies for war.

Warm hospitality

Over the years, journalists from either country have returned to their own with stories of the warm reception they received and the generosity of their hosts. On the 1989-90 tour of Pakistan, when I expressed a desire to visit Mohenjo-daro, I was flown there as a guest, provided with a guide, and taken around. Perhaps the guide was a security person to ensure I didn’t do anything his bosses wouldn’t approve of. No matter, since my interest was historical, not political. On most tours, writers came back with stories of stores refusing to accept money if they bought anything.

It wasn’t all sweetness and light, of course. In Faisalabad on that 1989-90 tour, there were megaphone-wielding speakers urging the public to come to the stadium and disrupt the matches. In Karachi, a one-dayer had to be called off owing to crowd disturbances.

But the sound and fury was orchestrated mainly by those around the matches rather than the players themselves, who were, and continue to be, friends.

And this is where the texture of this Asia Cup has been different. For one, the stadium hasn’t been packed as usual, and it is the players (goaded by their administration) who have taken the lead in keeping the hostility alive, justified or not. The refusal to shake hands or to be seen fraternising with the opposition out of respect for those who fell in Pahalgam and in support of India’s soldiers means that cricket has been forced to behave out of character because politicians don’t want to make the tough decisions. This is in contrast to times when cricket was forced to play the role of peace missions and diplomacy. Cricket for Peace was the motto then.

Politics minus the war

At the Asia Cup, we are witnessing politics minus the war. Perhaps this is better than war thanks to politics. A Sahibzada Farhan pointing his bat like a gun in celebration of a half-century is a better alternative to actual guns pointed at anyone. Mock battles on the cricket field — however ugly they look and however unnecessary — are better than real action on the battlefield where lives, rather than cricket matches are lost.

The Indian team has shown greater maturity (apart from greater skill) by limiting their response to the kind of off-field sledging skipper Suryakumar Yadav indulged in when he said, “Stop calling India-Pakistan matches a rivalry…it’s a no-contest.” He must hope his words don’t come back to bite him at the end of the tournament.

If Pakistan make it to the final, and play India, the temptation to go one-up on the other might be strong. If the response to a handshake not given is a bat pointed like a gun or miming a plane being shot down (this, by Haris Rauf), will the Indian team be practising their mimes to make a point? The notion that sport stands for something beyond itself implies something positive — hope, peace, love — rather than the opposite. It is after all we who paint it in the colours we want.

Someday, an India-Pakistan cricket match will be a boring affair, with nothing memorable on field or off. Just another match, as players sometimes say. But when?

Published – September 24, 2025 12:30 am IST

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Will a two-tiered World Test Championship do more harm than good?

admin — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 20:06:00 +0000

A proposal to restructure the World Test Championship (WTC) into a two-tiered system, potentially dividing the 12 Test-playing nations into two groups of six teams, or into two groups of seven and five teams, is gaining traction. While some argue that this system could improve the quality of matches and increase competitiveness by having top teams play each other more often, others worry that lower-ranked teams will get fewer opportunities to play. Will a two-tiered WTC do more harm than good? Deep Dasgupta and Jatin Paranjape discuss the question in a conversation moderated by Amol Karhadkar. Edited excerpts:

Is this proposal actually expected to benefit Test cricket?

Deep Dasgupta: I wrote for Sportstar in 2017 in favour of the proposal, so I am an advocate. The quality of the India-England Test series may not have been great, but because it was competitive, it had everyone’s attention. Test cricket will be watched by people as long as it is competitive. Obviously, we can’t expect people to watch it on all five days, for seven hours each day. But if it is competitive, people will follow it more often. With a two-tiered WTC, you will have a more competitive series and more people following Test matches again.

Jatin Paranjape: Today, more people consume the T20 (Twenty-20) format of cricket. But having said that, consumer behaviour has evolved rapidly: there is a niche group of people supporting Test cricket as well. They follow and appreciate the intricacies of Test cricket.

So, the time has come for the ICC (International Cricket Council) to launch Test cricket as a product. They need to be mindful of the fact that while all the media attention is around the T20 game, the ratings during the India-England Test series went through the roof. And that launch has to be a happy marriage of keeping the philosophical priority of Test cricket alive with the commercial angle.

I am not against the two-tier format, but it should not be skewed towards redistribution of commerce; it should be skewed towards redistribution of opportunity for all the teams, so that they have a reasonable stab at Test cricket. It should incentivise teams in the second tier to improve their game.

At the moment, the WTC involves only nine of the 12 Test-playing nations. Each team plays six series, primarily to avoid pitting India and Pakistan against each other. How can you re-jig the format or make the existing format more fan-friendly?

Deep Dasgupta: The major issue with a two-tier system with six teams in each tier is that a lot of the teams might say, ‘I am not going to play second tier’. It becomes a bit of an issue. So let’s say they are divided as seven (in top tier) and five (in the bottom) and we stick with the current format, which is six series in a cycle. If you have seven teams in Tier 1, automatically you play six other teams (in a cycle). Whether it’s India-Pakistan, I think that’s a different issue. That’s above my pay grade, so I’m not going to get into that bit. That can happen whenever it happens and whatever the powers are, they will decide.

Once Test cricket is sold as quality product — the India-England series was a great advocate for that — then you will also get revenue from it. And then you can create a Test fund. A major chunk of it would go into organising Test series for teams in the second tier. One of the major reasons why many Test-playing nations don’t play many Test matches is the commercial aspect. A series with five T20s is more commercially viable than one with three Test matches. If the ICC comes up with a Test fund, that could help.

Jatin Paranjape: Your calendar dictates what you can and cannot do. There is a finite number of days within which you need to drive this game forward. It’s funny that today, when you think about the calendar, you think about the IPL (Indian Premier League) first and then look at what is left after that. The ICC will have to identify what the two most important formats are, out of the three formats. ODI (One Day International) cricket needs to be looked at. The amount of inane ODI cricket being played today at a bilateral level is not good for the game or the broadcaster. I don’t think it represents any value for the consumer either. So if they look at how many days they have available as part of the calendar, then let them prioritise T20 cricket and Test cricket as the two main focus areas. The ICC has to have a tricky conversation with multiple stakeholders ahead of the 2027 cycle. The people at the top of the ICC are canny commercial operators. Jay Shah (ICC Chairman) will want to prioritise Test cricket and will have to find the right way to do it.

Perhaps with an eye on the next ICC broadcasting rights cycle (2027-2031), the ICC in July formed a working group headed by former New Zealand batter, Roger Twose, to look into all aspects of the next WTC. If Twose calls either of you, what would you suggest?

Deep Dasgupta: First, figure out a window for Test cricket. For that to happen, control the spread of franchise cricket. You see 29-year-old quality cricketers retiring from international cricket; these are all obviously interconnected issues. Look at windows where more and more Test cricket can be played. The two-tier system makes a lot of sense in such windows.

Jatin Paranjape: The ICC is the custodian of the game and custodians always have a long-term view on things. So nothing needs to be fixed in the next year or two. The path needs to be clear: over the next five-seven years, how are we going to have 12 really strong Test-playing nations? One way is to look at the tier two teams right now and create a league for them. Create a league whereby after a certain level, two or three teams out of those five or six are switched against tier one teams. That gives the spectators in these other countries something to look forward to.

Deep Dasgupta: That is a great idea. Five teams in tier two can play each other over a period of a month and a half or two months.

Can you suggest the ideal approach for the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India), the ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board), and Cricket Australia — the three top boards that control the Test calendar and revenue — to make the two-tier Test system work?

Jatin Paranjape: There isn’t a more opportune time than this: the head of the ICC is the former head of the BCCI. A lot of changes can be made because there is the muscle to do it. When I say muscle, I mean it in a good way, in a way that where you want to promote the game, where you want to add commercial longevity to the game.

Let us not underestimate the power of the consumer. The consumer must feel enthused that Test cricket is well looked after; that there is the dopamine fix with the T20 format, but there is also a fantastic Test cricket calendar year on year, which is going to evolve into strengthening the tier two teams.

I also feel the ICC will miss an opportunity if they don’t form an advisory committee of some of the top players who have been big proponents of Test cricket or champions in Test cricket. No disrespect to Roger Twose, but players such as Sachin Tendulkar, Alastair Cook, and Ricky Ponting need to be part of the decision-making process.

Deep Dasgupta: I am glad that we are talking and everyone is talking about this. We have seen the time when nobody was really bothered about Test cricket. Once we accept the fact that there are challenges, and we need to do something, I am sure there will be solutions.

Jatin Paranjape: Let me talk about the consumer again. Let us not forget that the consumer is also often an aspiring cricketer. If teenagers don’t want to play red-ball cricket, they want to play white-ball cricket. You need to be able to touch them in some way, you need to be able to inspire them with the fact that Test cricket is being given priority that is similar to what is given to T20 cricket. If you fix cricket from an organisational perspective, but if your new players don’t want to play Test cricket, then you have a problem again. You need to launch Test cricket as a product. The objective could be that by 2036, we have we have 14 really strong Test nations.

Any parting thoughts?

Deep Dasgupta: For us, Test cricket is the most favoured format. Since everyone is talking about improving it, things will fall into place.

Jatin Paranjape: There needs to be a long-term view. The BCCI needs to shepherd this entire conversation. It does not need to be a dictator, but it needs to shepherd this entire conversation. Without a definitive point of view from the BCCI, we’ll be having the same chat two years down the road.

Listen to the conversation

Deep Dasgputa, former Test cricketer, and cricket broadcaster; Jatin Paranjape, ODI cricketer-turned-sports marketing professional and member of the BCCI’s Cricket Advisory Committee

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India have the best team, but for many one match is all that matters

admin — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 19:00:00 +0000

The weirdest international cricket tournament is set to commence this week. Relevance? Well, television wants it. More importantly, it provides an opportunity for an India-Pakistan match which can only be played either at the two World Cups (T20 and 50-over) or at the Champions Trophy. Other teams can be forgiven for thinking they merely make up the numbers.

At least twice before — in 2013 and 2017 — it had been decided that that year’s tournament would be the last one. For eight years the Champions Trophy lay unloved and uncared for till it was determined that the love and care should return.

And return it did, to Pakistan, where the last International Cricket Council tournament was the World Cup in 1996. Were rules made on the fly? England discovered just in time during the 2023 World Cup in India that only teams finishing in the top eight would qualify. Many teams assumed it would be teams one to eight in the ICC rankings as before.

The tournament being held in Pakistan is either good news or bad depending on which aspects of their national team the hosts adapt — the confusion and insecurity or the skill and assurance.

Questions over the final

So, where will the final be played? We don’t know. How exciting! Another layer of uncertainty in a game of uncertainties. It could be in Lahore if it involves countries other than India. Dubai, if it involves India who had made it clear they wouldn’t travel to Pakistan for the tournament. In the balance of cravings, Pakistan needed the tournament more than India did. Next year, the T20 World Cup will be held in India, and Pakistan have threatened not to travel here. But no sensible betting man would put his money on their pulling out. Quid pro quo threats work only among equals.

India are scheduled to host the Champions Trophy in 2029 (unless the ICC decides, sensibly, that the tournament serves no purpose and throws television a different bone). Four years is a long time in sport, so let’s not worry now.

In the 80s and early 90s, when the host country kept the profits from the 50-over World Cup, the ICC was close to bankruptcy. When India’s Jagmohan Dalmiya took over as ICC President in 1997, it had $20,000 in its kitty. When his term ended in 2000, the ICC had over $15 million.

Dalmiya introduced the Champions Trophy where the money went to the ICC. It also helped him give the associate countries a bigger share of the pie. This helped India earn more money, greater influence, and also in building a ‘vote bank’ where non-Test countries voted with India.

The Champions Trophy having achieved its aims, both the stated one of finance and the unstated one of support, now finds no justification to exist. India threatened to pull out of the last tournament (in England) because they were unhappy with their share of the ICC money. There has been talk in recent years of converting the Champions Trophy into a T20 tournament. That doesn’t make sense either.

Less than two weeks after the final of the Champions Trophy, the IPL is scheduled to begin in India. It will be interesting to see how many players who have pulled out of the tournament in Pakistan and Dubai with injuries or otherwise will recover miraculously in time for the IPL. My money is on the Australian bowlers.

Strain on stars

The biggest argument against an irrelevant tournament, of course, is the additional strain on the players. Cricket boards and players are constantly complaining about playing too much cricket, reduced time with family and shortened careers as a result of the physical demands of the game. Then why add to the calendar?

Indian fans might gripe about missing Jasprit Bumrah, their trump card in any tournament. But the selectors know there are more important playing days ahead — the five-Test series in the English summer being the highlight.

India have the best all-round team even without Bumrah. If they win the tournament which they last did in 2013, it might erase some of the pain of the 1-3 Test series defeat in Australia. But for some, a victory on Sunday against Pakistan might be sufficient.

Published – February 19, 2025 12:30 am IST

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Champions Trophy: Pakistan’s Mess Is Shocking, But Not Surprising

admin — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 07:29:30 +0000

The last thing a country wants after bagging the hosting rights for a global sports tournament is to not be ready on time. As things stand right now, Pakistan find themselves staring at that worst-case scenario as it races against time to complete work on venues scheduled to host the non-India Champions Trophy matches. It has already missed two deadlines—December 31 and January 25—and now looks set to miss the third one as well, on January 31. According to reports from the country, Pakistan will now try to finish the renovation work at Lahore’s Gaddafi stadium by February 2.

A few reports have suggested that the PCB were forced to restrict the entry of journalists at stadiums in Karachi and Lahore to save face. Also, as of January 25, work for the seats and digital screens was reportedly still incomplete at the Gaddafi stadium, which is scheduled to host four matches, including the Australia vs England clash on February 22 and the second semi-final on March 5. A raft of videos on social media, filmed by ordinary people, show the sorry state of the venues currently.

Why ICC Is Responsible Too

Interestingly, the focus shifted to the state of the stadiums only after the issue of India not willing to travel to Pakistan was settled. The powers that be in the PCB could have perhaps spent a little more energy trying to hasten the pace of work rather than trying to ensure that all matches are played on Pakistan soil.

While the initial criticism for the slow pace of work—Pakistan has reportedly spent upwards of Rs 372 crore on renovation at the three centres—should be directed at their cricket board, the International Cricket Council (ICC) will also have to shoulder a lot of the responsibility. Which is why when news of Geoff Allardice stepping down as the ICC CEO was revealed barely three weeks before the start of the tournament, it wasn’t a huge surprise. This is being seen as the first big head to roll because of the laggard work at the venues in Pakistan—work that Allardice was in charge of overseeing. The fact that no thought was given to keeping a hybrid model ready, with India playing their matches at a neutral venue, was also a big failure. The decision to award the tournament to Pakistan was taken in November 2021 by an ICC Board chaired by former ICC Chairman Greg Barclay, the gentleman Jay Shah took the reins from. As many as three other officials, including the head of events, the head of marketing and communications and the head of the anti-corruption unit had stepped down citing personal reasons after the much-criticised T20 World Cup last year. They were all part of Barclay’s team.

Good Old Days

Regardless of the ultimate fate of the Champions Trophy this time, there is no doubt that the current ICC leadership group will be taking a close, hard look at the whole fiasco. Two things that they need to keep in mind in the future, while considering awarding Pakistan hosting rights of global events are a hybrid model—so that India’s games can be played at a neutral venue—and the overall state of sports governance and policy strength in the country.

Perhaps the biggest indicator of how much both governance and policies in Pakistan have crumbled over the decades is the country’s overall decline in global sports performances. There was a time when Pakistan was synonymous with excellence in sports like field hockey, cricket, squash and boxing. Three Olympic gold medals in men’s hockey, three ICC titles, six World Squash Team Championship titles and an Olympic bronze in boxing came from those glory days. Athletes like Sohail Abbas, Waseem Ahmed, Asif Iqbal, Zaheer Abbas, Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Javed Miandad, Hashim Khan, Jahangir Khan, Jansher Khan and Syed Hussain Shah, among many others, were global superstars, across decades.

But that was a long time ago. The decline has been slow, but very steady. Administrations failed to put in place forward-looking systems and that really hurt Pakistani sports. There’s a reason why Arshad Nadeem’s Paris Olympic gold in men’s javelin throw was celebrated with so much gusto—not just because it was the country’s first Olympic medal in 22 years, but because it somewhat quenched the thirst for global sporting success, something the country hadn’t experienced consistently in a very long time.

What Ruined Pakistan’s Sports Ecosystem

Pakistan just couldn’t keep pace with the changing face and pace of global sports. Sports like hockey, cricket and squash have all evolved into almost completely different games from the time Pakistan dominated them. That, coupled with charges of corruption, mismanagement, extremely irregular government support and policies that ignored most sports apart from cricket, saw Pakistan fall behind in the race to be a global sporting powerhouse. Many a sports journalist in Pakistan have written articles over the years about the steady decline they have witnessed.

Ironically, Pakistan is still a hub for manufacturing high-quality sports equipment. However, that is not a parameter to gauge if a country’s sports ecosystem is robust. And though cricket has been the biggest and most popular sport in the country for a while, the sport’s administration hasn’t really been spared some of the scourges that plague other games and the country’s overall sports health. The PCB has seen as many as three different chairmen since 2022; allegations of vested interests and political interference have hastened the decline of Pakistan cricket. Just December last year, former Australian cricketer Jason Gilespie stepped down as Pakistan’s Test coach. He told ABC Sport that he was kept in the dark and “blindsided” by the PCB over key decisions. Former bowling great Waqar Younis was brought on board as an advisor to the PCB Chairman, but then, he was suddenly made the mentor of a domestic team in the Champions T20 Cup. In August last year, after Pakistan lost to Bangladesh by 10 wickets in a Test match at home in Rawalpindi, former Pakistan head coach Mudassar Nazar, who had played almost 200 international matches for Pakistan, said the PCB was “full of confused people” making “mistake after mistake”. Former Pakistan Test opener Ahmed Shehzad said he has “never seen Pakistan cricket sink so low”.

Going by reports, for the Champions Trophy this time, the PCB has undertaken the largest venue renovation exercise since 1996—the last time the country hosted an ICC event. Many in the PCB will be having sleepless nights right now. The question is, what kind of notes is the new ICC regime taking?

(The author is a former sports editor and primetime sports news anchor. He is currently a columnist, features writer and stage actor)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

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