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The SuperSport Park in Centurion - clearly, the prettier ground
© Cricinfo Ltd
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Yesterday was the day for a personal record. For the first time, I watched two cricket matches at separate cricket grounds on the same day, and I was not meant to be at either. Truth be told, I caught only a few overs of the Sri Lanka-New Zealand game at The Wanderers before leaving for the Edwardian Sports Complex, where India and Australia were practicing, then watched Owais Shah club those sixes on TV. At six pm, dinner plans would have been the logical choice, but I knew I'd rather be elsewhere.
I was contemplating dialing a cab when I had a stroke of luck. A young South African journalist who had been assigned the Wanderers game was driving down to Centurion to watch the South African chase. I gratefully hitched a ride.
Centurion is around 40 kilometres from Johannesburg, and the drive takes 30-40 minutes. The highway is dotted with office buildings that belong to leading South African companies that have been moving away from Johannesburg's expensive, and increasingly decrepit, central business district. Locals say that it is easier to get to Centurion from many parts of Johannesburg than it is to the Wanderers, which is at one end of the city.
Continue reading "Lucky to be in Centurion"
Most interesting. We are currently running a poll seeking your opinion on the future of one-day cricket, and on last count, more than 62% of you think it should be left as it is.
The other options were:
It should be fixed at 40 overs a side
40 overs and two innings
And played less frequently
The ECB has decided where it stands and scrapped the 50-over game at the domestic level. The English have traditionally been the forerunners for change, however, only 18% of you seem to favour the 40-over format which the board has adopted.
The 50-over format, will of course, be around till the expiry of the ICC television rights in 2015. But who knows how the game would have changed by then?
As for me, I’d start with not reducing overs, but matches. What one-day cricket lacks the most at the moment is meaning and context. That’s the subject for a bigger piece.
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