Mumbai: When the proverbial lambs to slaughter was being played out in the Guwahati ODI with bowlers’ being the victims, Parthiv Patel in commentary narrated his pre-match conversation with the pitch curator where they were half joking 400 runs might be scored. Little did they know, Mt 400 would be scaled twice across 93.3 overs in the India-West Indies ODI.
With 478 of the 811 runs scored on Wednesday coming in boundaries including 27 sixes, it would have reinforced the belief of those running the show that the crowd had their money’s worth. For cricket fans in Guwahati, the next ODI may not come soon; but would those tuning in from their home screens on October 3 be game for another 400-run run-feast? We must remember, that set is about 6-8 %. A close T20 game with scores less than 150 is less compelling than a close game with scores closer to 180.
Ashish Bhowmick, incidentally also BCCI’s lead curator, was in charge of the pitch in a match being played in the home state of BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia, who was also in attendance. No prizes for guessing the bald playing surface was not an accident. Often, the spin-off from using pitches that marginalize the bowler is left unaccounted for. Also, if Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are the flavor of the season and the expected poster boys for the next World Cup, it’s unlikely that addressing the long-term health of the ODI game will be at the top of the minds of the administrators or the broadcasters. “At times, the problem with certain constituents of the ecosystem is that they tend to think sport is above entertainment. It may be for the supercore fans. Before he became the ICC CEO, Sanjog Gupta would address this argument from a broadcaster’s standpoint. When the Impact Player debate in the IPL was at its peak, he was asked if more runs translated to more viewers. “And levels of engagement are directly proportional to the scoring patterns. The important thing to remember is that play should not start seeming monotonous after a point. It should not be that hitting sixes becomes so easy that sixes become the norm and not a novelty.”
“It’s very important for the game to be entertaining,” a key stakeholder in the game told HT on the bat-ball imbalance debate. “What we know is that entertaining cricket tends to attract more viewers,” he said.
