It has been a hundred years of cricket's governing body. Commemorating a century if the ICC , Tehelka, the Indian weekly magazine, has attempted to deal with a history which is encyclopaedic, a history that generates an intense passion.

Despite 100 years of a tumultuous journey, cricket still thrills millions, says ICC president David Morgan looking back on the century that shaped international cricket.

Cricket’s survival lies in its social meaning, not business opportunities, says Brian Stoddart, author of Saturday Afternoon Fever. The writer believes the men who matter should cut some of the top-tier games and focus on local clubs.

Tradition is a powerful force in most cultures and protecting tradition in cricket is important in order to guarantee it a future. Most tours now, however, do little to stimulate local interest. Ashes tours of old, in both England and Australia, had a series of state and county matches that were well-attended and gave good exposure to a wider range of players. They attracted more people to matches at cheaper prices. Tradition comes at a premium these days – a ticket to a day at the Lords test now costs more than $100. We need to have more people watching at lower prices if cricket is to remain a relevant and accessible sport.

In the same edition former ICC president Ehsan Mani says the IPL and Twenty20 cricket are changing how the game does business. It is a case of overkilling the golden goose?

MCC president Tony Lewis asks, is there place for the game's original custodians in the Twenty20 world of today?

Adam Chadwick, curator of the MCC musuem, says the history of the gentleman’s game must be compiled and chronicled.

Tehelka's editor Tarun J Tejpal says cricket today reflects the frenetic, fleeting nature of our times.

It is tight, tinselly and explosive – designed, in an age of hype, marketing and advertising, for television. In an age devastated by the whims of the mythic audience — the collective spectator — it pursues the spirit of entertainment above the spirit of excellence and contest. The bowler is no longer Hadlee or Holding. He is just a bunny boy who sets up the sixers that the helmeted batsmen can send flying into stands of screaming fans. In an age leached of all centralities, in which 24-hour news has made everything a blur, it caresses at no memory, merely fuels desire. Millions of my generation can recall, 30 years later, every great innings of Sunny Gavaskar, every great spell of Bedi and Chandra. Not one of today’s will be able to tell you what happened in the match between India and Australia month before last.

July 18, 2009

Testing times for the longer game

Posted on 07/18/2009 in Cricket

There are still plenty of people to fight back and say Test cricket is a much better game than any of the shorter formats, but that is just a matter of opinion, says Simon Barnes in the Australian. There is no ducking the matter - Test cricket is under threat. Its decline has begun. Perhaps extinction is inevitable.

Let's strive for a little objectivity. What does Test cricket have that the shorter forms don't? Tests last longer. A Test series is the stuff not of an afternoon but an entire summer. Its plot lines are longer and more intricate. The examination of character is more leisurely and more searching. Test cricket asks more questions. It brings us more duels.

June 30, 2009

Fifty-over cricket will survive

Posted on 06/30/2009 in Cricket

In an interview to Sharda Ugra of India Today, the ICC president David Morgan talks about various issues regarding the future of cricket - the primacy of Test cricket in the face of Twenty20, the changes mooted to spice up Tests, the survival of the 50-over format and the Champions Trophy, plus the prospect of more freelance players in the T20 leagues.

Let me take you back to India's last tour in the UK in 2007. There were seven ODIs and at the Oval, India were 2-3 down and India won a marvelous match at the oval on a beautiful sunny day and the ground was packed. It was 3-3 and there were Indians throughout the UK who wanted to buy tickets to the last match a few days later here. And for anybody to say that fifty over cricket is finished internationally, they only have to look back to that seven-match series. It was electric, wonderful, skilful, and of course it provided a whole day's entertainment as opposed to requiring two T20 matches to provide the same duration of entertainment.

June 27, 2009

Is cricket becoming something we see between advertisements?

Posted on 06/27/2009 in Cricket

Harsha Bhogle, who has gone from radio to television commentary, fears commerce is driving us towards cricket becoming that little something we see between advertising. He admits that advertisements pay for his livelihood yet believes we are reaching a stage where administrators, as custodians, need to draw a balance between propagating sport and selling it. Read on in the Indian Express.

If we price the product so high that the buyer has no choice but to recover his cost with advertising at every opportunity, we run the risk of diminishing the spectacle of sport for those that follow it. We cannot make the watching of sport clinical when it is meant to be enjoyable. So here is a debate that is crying out to be heard; one forum for people who sell rights, for those that buy them and for people who watch the final product.

June 24, 2009

Gilchrist talks the walk

Posted on 06/24/2009 in Cricket

In the Times, Adam Gilchrist talks about his celebrated habit of 'walking' and its orgins. Gilchrist plays hard, is fond of a sledge, speaks bluntly - but he has had this moral code since childhood that it is wrong to dupe the umpire, writes Patrick Kidd.

"Back in Australia in a second XI game for New South Wales, I got a thin edge, didn't walk and went on to make a hundred. I felt so bad afterwards that I went to apologise to the bowler, who was a 38-year-old veteran. He said, ‘Don't worry, this game obviously means more to you than it does to me.' And I thought, ‘Yeah, but still. At what cost?'” From that point, he decided he would always walk if he had hit the ball.

June 12, 2009

Cricket rakes in the moolah

Posted on 06/12/2009 in Cricket

Cricket is growing increasingly lucrative, and the players don't seem to mind it, despite the adverse impact on Test cricket and the danger of dwindling national loyalties, writes Greg Baum in the Age.

Gayle helped to popularise T20 cricket, then progressively to refine it. The Bash for Cash is the latest and most exciting form yet, known as One-one, or — imaginatively — O1. "One ball each," explained Gayle. "Minimalisation to the max. Takes out all the tedium and dreariness. Game's over in no time. The kids love it." Symonds loved it; all he ever wanted to be growing up was a kid. Brett Lee was not so sure: he bowled a no-ball and went out in the first round.

May 19, 2009

Graeme Pollock wary of commercialisation in cricket

Posted on 05/19/2009 in Cricket

Graeme Pollock, one of the finest left-hand batsmen the game has ever produced, believes that cricket has become too financial. Speaking to the Independent's Peter Bills from his home in Johannesburg, Pollock says he's not one for Twenty20 and says 50-over cricket changed Test cricket because players started hitting over the top.

Does Pollock still like just watching cricket, surely one of the great pleasures of life for the sporting male? His reply surprises me. "I don't get the same pleasure. Cricket has become far too financial and I am not a 20 overs a game guy. If it wasn't for the big money, I'd be surprised if any of the guys said they enjoyed 20/20.

"It's a huge money making thing but it's just a slog and it's out of proportion to the game itself. I was talking to Barry Richards about it and he said, why not just have a bowling machine and see who can hit the ball the furthest."

April 15, 2009

Putting ’keeping in the forefront

Posted on 04/15/2009 in Cricket

In the Hindu, S Dinakar wonders whether the specialist wicketkeepers are a dying breed and if the modern-day game places too much importance on depth in batting.

Someone like Bhagwat Chandrasekar, a freakish legspinner, posed searching questions to ’keepers. Farokh Engineer (66 catches and 16 stumpings in 46 Tests) — an aggressive batsman and a flashy ’keeper — says, “Nine out of ten times, Chandra did not realise which way the ball would spin. Chandra really gave it a rip. His wrist would almost turn around completely. “Keeping to him called for split second coordination. His quicker delivery was really quick. The one that darted through the leg side could provide a stumping opportunity. You had to be quick and alert.”

March 27, 2009

Golden slippers

Posted on 03/27/2009 in Cricket

With Rahul Dravid in world-record catching territory, Andrew Stevenson, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, takes a look at the worth of the slips.

Some reckon it looks as easy as shelling peas. You stand in the slips, the ball comes your way, you generally don't have to move, you make the catch and the batsman begins the long, slow march to the dressing room. While few who've ever stood in a slips cordon for a Test match would rate it easy, Cricket Australia fielding coach Mike Young has the bar up much, much higher. "I truly believe slips catching in Test cricket, mentally, is the hardest thing I've ever seen in sport, when you consider you're out there all day and that you've got to be ready every ball.”

March 20, 2009

The bad and the ugly

Posted on 03/20/2009 in Cricket

	The verdict's out on referrals © Getty Images

The ICC is now discovering that the umpire referral system, thought it had merit, isn’t the solution to every moment of discontent in the game. The world criticised them for not using technology and now that they are, they are being criticised for everything that comes along with it.

Speaking of outcries against the system, the extraordinary language used by a newspaper in New Zealand against the Indian manager, calling him a 'goon' is certainly unacceptable,

These are two issues Harsha Bhogle focusses on, in his column in the Indian Express.

I don’t think anyone was referring to the last meaning but to call anyone a thug or a gangster is not on. It reminds me of the words used by visiting journalists against Indian umpires from the days when there were no replays. It shouldn’t have been acceptable then and it cannot be acceptable now. Have we gone beyond disagreeing with people without calling them names?

Staying with the referral system, to see the umpire’s decision - and the reaction of 25,000 fans - overturned, negates the excitement and expectation of the game, points out Arthur Turner in Sport24.com.

The excuse that that technology is not always foolproof must be dispelled once and for all. If the ICC wants to make use of technology they must go all the way with it, if not, rather abandon it. This quasi approach will not work and is only complicating matters further.

March 17, 2009

India aim for cricket control

Posted on 03/17/2009 in Cricket

Mihir Bose, the BBC's sports editor, writes in his blog that the ICC never has, and never will, have the powers to come up with a solution, let alone impose it. While the world waited to hear how the cricket's governing body would deal with the security threat posed by sport being targeted for the first time since the Munich Olympics in 1972, the ICC told us where the next Champions Trophy, a 50-over tournament that many feel has outlived its usefulness, will be held. The trio that effectively run cricket, says Bose, is India, Australia and South Africa. But India, the economic powerhouse, needs to show it can live up to universally accepted international standards in terms of timing, location and security arrangements.

March 15, 2009

Featherbeds are futile

Posted on 03/15/2009 in Cricket

WV Raman writes in his column for Sportstar that the decline in the quality of pitches can contribute to the decline of cricket. The pitch is an integral part of the game, says the former Indian batsman, and as such the quality of pitches needs to be good if a game of cricket has to provide real entertainment to the public.

There is some merit in the ICC wanting pitches across the world to be reasonably similar but I believe the idea behind this is to eradicate under-prepared pitches that the countries in the sub-continent sometimes dish out for Test matches. However, there is still room for every nation to retain its uniqueness when it comes to the nature of pitches that international matches are played on.