Is Test Cricket losing its sheen [0r is Cricket losing
its sheen ?] ??
The news is
Dharamshala will host the Indo Pak clash in ICC T20 2016 on Mar 19. BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur said “Looking at the heat generated by the
discussion on whether the series between India and Pakistan will be held or
not, I think you need a cool atmosphere and the right atmosphere is in
Dharamshala.” Thakur, also heads the
Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association. That is no good news for Chennai fans already
unhappy with no CSK in IPL. The city has
been given four women’s games and won’t host a single match from the men’s T20
World Cup. Also, not one Chennai game will be televised.
Remember
watching the 1st ODI at Chepauk on 9th Oct 1987 – it was
the 3rd match of Group A in Reliance World Cup – chasing 271, Krish
Srikkanth made runs and Navjot Sidhu on a comeback hit 5 sixers transforming
from a strokeless wonder to six-hitting Sidhu.
From 200/3 match drifted and with a single required to tie off the last
ball, Steve Waugh clean bowled Maninder Singh. Once the headquarters of the game, from where
cement magnate Srinivasan bossed over world cricket, Chennai has been worst-hit
by the winds of change within the BCCI. Miles away, down
under, Australia has claimed an emphatic victory over the West Indies on day
three of the Test in Hobart, winning the match by an innings and 212 runs. After
putting together an enormous first innings total of 583, Australia declared and handed over a worst defeat – an innings
defeat by 212 runs.
Even before the
start, only as few as 10,000 people were
expected to pass through the gates at Bellerive Oval but on day one, it was much less at official
5927 ! An Australian newspaper quoting CA’s Tasmanian board member as saying
: “The workers of Tasmania are competing
with the fat cat bureaucrats in Canberra who have the highest disposable income
in Australia”
Tasmania is an island state that is part of the
Commonwealth of Australia. Hobart is the
capital and most populous city of
Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony, Hobart is Australia's second
oldest capital city after Sydney, New South Wales. The city is located in the
state's south-east on the estuary of the Derwent River, making it the most
southern of Australia's capital cities and its harbour forms the second-deepest
natural port in the world. Bellerive
Oval has produced some cricketers – David Boon and Ricky Ponting.
It was only in
1979-80 that West Indies won their first Test series down under. The seeds of
that victory were sowed during the humbling 5-1 defeat on the 1975-76 tour, and
those were different days for West Indies that had Gordon Greenidge, Desmond
Haynes, Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Alvin Kalicharran, Dereck Murray and fearsome
foursome of Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner and Colin Croft - now the team led by Jason Holder has Brathwaite, R Chandrika, Darren Bravo, Marlon
Samuels, J Blackwood, D Ramdin, Khemer Roach, Jerome Taylor, JA Warrican and ST
Gabriel – how many of them can you identify !!
So the biggest test
for Bellerive Oval was not the performance of the tourists but that of the
spectators. The vultures are circling,
with concerns about a poor crowd - Canberra and Coffs Harbour have both been
pushed forward as alternate venues should the Tasmanian public continue not to
turn out. For the present match ticket
prices had been cut by 30 per cent to try and attract more to the ground. TV
advertisements were on high rotation and
a huge billboard hungs over Hobart's main street telling punters not to be a
"Daryl". "A Daryl is a
person who missed out on coming to the cricket, Daryl is the person who you
don't want to be because he didn't come to the match and missed a really
dramatic occasion !! "
Even before the
first ball was bowled, Australian press wrote that Hobart could be on the verge
of hosting its last red-ball Test, as Cricket Australia (CA) responds to the
likelihood of dismal crowds at the opening match of the series between
Australia and West Indies. Hobart has
only hosted 11 Tests since its first against Sri Lanka in 1989. There were speculations that Canberra could host a Test next summer,
while after the success of the recent inaugural day-night Test between
Australia and New Zealand in Adelaide that translated to a crowd total of
120,000 and bumper TV ratings, CA might look to shift Hobart to a pink-ball
fixture.
"Tassie spent
years in the sporting wilderness. People
fought – now they are not turning up imperilling its continuance as a Test ground. With
Canberra craving a maiden Test, Cricket ACT has spied Hobart as the weakest
link and is unapologetic in its desire to become Australia's "sixth"
international red-ball venue next summer when Pakistan and South Africa visit
for three Tests each.
Hobart's woes are
traceable to the last time a Test was played at Bellerive; when Sri Lanka
toured in 2012 the total crowd fell short of 20,000. Media coverage of the
empty stands and sparse hill was unkind. In response, administrators pinned the
modest figure on a 'perfect storm' of unfavourable circumstances: the game was
scheduled the week before Christmas, rain was a feature through the weekend and
$43 was the cheapest entry for an adult.
When only 12,177 attended Australia's World
Cup fixture against Scotland in March, another fixture undermined by rain, it
once again fed the perception that the crowd simply does not show up in Hobart.
CA's decision to
reduce ticket prices by a third for adults to $25 - still could not get many in to the venue ~ so
it could be no Test or atleast no red cherry test for Tasmania. ..
.. .. but, BCCI
by denying matches to a place where spectator turn out has always been very
high – they are driving the game away from the spectators – by saying that the
closed 3 stands hamper … without admitting the fact that Chepauk without 3
stands even attracts more crowds than many other newly favoured Venues.
So much so for the
game and the avid fans of Indian Cricket.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
12th Dec
2015.
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