PakPassion member Junaids puts in an impassioned plea for an even playing field when it comes to pitches in ODIs, failing which he feels the 50-over format will die a painful death.

By Junaids (8th November, 2023)

Firstly, let me display my credentials here.

I was born in 1969, but I was too young to enjoy the 1975 World Cup. But I loved the 1979 and 1983 editions in England, and the 1987 and 1996 ones in the subcontinent, and 1992 in Australia. And I loved, as a kid growing up in England, watching the domestic 55 and 60 over Cups and the 40 over Sunday League.

As an adult I actually bought tickets to the 2015 World Cup Final and both the 2019 World Cup semi-finals.

I consider myself a lover of the World Cup.

But something was already going wrong in 2015. Massive bats meant that mishits which used to be caught now generally went for 6. Two new balls and fielding restrictions effectively neutered the bowlers, as did the wide rule. Flawed batsmen like Martin Guptill were turned into Viv Richards.

Already by 2015 the balance between bat and ball was lost. Some of the later games were still quite exciting, as the pressure of the occasion combined with scoreboard pressure to ensure that batsmen at least got themselves out (eg McCullum in the Final).

Fast forward eight years, and we have had one close finish in fifty matches so far. The matches are deeply boring because they are not even competitive. The records are completely meaningless because the bowlers are not in the game at all.

Yes, there was a certain excitement to watching Fakhar Zaman tee off against New Zealand. But, like with Glenn Maxwell, it was that guilty excitement caused by the knowledge that if there was any grass on the pitch or a seam on the ball he would have been caught behind inside ten deliveries. And to be honest, the rain delay was more exciting than the slogging.

When Fakhar Zaman and Abdullah Shafique reduce Trent Boult to figures of 4-0-43-0 you know that you are watching a pantomime, a carefully stage-managed sport of the sort which would tie both of Mohammad Ali's hands and together and put his legs into concrete so that your grandmother could knock him out.

There was a champion cricketer out there. But he was deliberately handicapped so that a mediocre hacker could thrash him to all points of the ground.

Is that sport? Kind of.

The problem, of course, is that unlike the last World Cup in England there is no proper atmosphere in the grounds anyway. 95% of the fans are Indian, and even inveterate sports tourists like myself gave up on trying to attend when the ICC, which in this case is visibly just the BCCI in disguise, didn't bother to release the schedule until it was too late for foreigners to come.

India seem to be very good at playing this strange version of cricket. They have found a formula which works on these doctored wickets against neutered bowling attacks. They alone deserve to win this competition.

But it's like watching a FIFA World Cup played on grassless pitches with gigantic goalposts so that every game finishes with a 43-35 result.

I don't really see how anyone can love this. The best bowlers are reduced to mediocrity, while weird rules and huge bats make gormless sloggers into champion batsmen.