Test Times

We never considered Bangladesh as competition, and another set of contests with Sri Lanka right after their Indian tour couldn’t have been a much awaited event. But the Indian fan doesn’t mind this overdose. Cricket is like phenergan syrup – addictive, has heavy sedative effects, and is available over the counter.

However India-Bangladesh tests have acted like B-complex tablets for Bangladesh. While the matches gave them valuable experience, Sehwag’s remark effused spirit of challenge in the team. If this helps improve the lowest ranked test team then it in turn enhances the overall quality of test cricket. I hope other star teams would also do their bit and not series with Bangladesh.

Continuing with the thoughts on promoting test cricket, I believe that the upcoming South Africa visit is a significant one. The cricketing world would look forward to the contest where the top ranked teams take on each other and settle the ongoing debate over the numero uno position.

Ever since Indian team achieved number one ranking many critics have doubted whether they would stay at the top for too long. When someone said that the team doesn’t have it in them – ‘it’ being the bowling attack – Zaheer Khan earned “Man of the Series” award. When someone said that India isn’t playing enough tests, the cricket board promptly planned two matches with South Africa, that too at the cost of two ODIs.

If there are anymore criteria to be satisfied then I hope that they are expressed very soon. Because now is the time for all of it to be duly taken care of. This can prove to be a golden era for the test format if India takes it on them to maintain the number one position. I don’t think that the captain would now repeat his diplomatic remarks about not considering rankings while playing. For once they should stick their neck out and say that they are out to silence the critics and camp at the peak for a good while. After all this feat is not just a matter of pride for the country but it could also prove to be a big boom in the falling market value of test cricket.

This post was published on my blog HOOKed! at Cricket Aakash