The finals of the champions trophy was pretty disappointing. It lacked thrill and it was a low scoring affair. Moreover the Aussies won yet another time. Although I don't hate the Aussies, I wanted the Kiwis to win the match as they haven't won even a single ICC event in spite of being in the semifinals of many. But to be fair the Aussies played better on that day. I expected Bond to strip the Aussie batting line up but he couldn't do much except the early strike and the Aussies reached the target, thanks to Watson for his excellent 105*. Presence of Vettori and Ryder could have made the match interesting but injury prevented them from playing.
Another important thing to be noted in this match is the crowd. The crowd was average for the final of this big ICC event. I don't know whether this was due to the early exit of the home team South Africa, or due to the time consuming nature of the ODI format. If somebody asks me the reason for that, i would pick the latter one. I am an ardent follower of cricket and I used to watch ODI right from the first ball to the finish. But after watching T20(thanks mainly to the IPL) I feel ODIs are dragging. In the entire tournament, I just watched two matches throughout. One the epic battle between India and Pakistan and the other one obviously the match between Australia and Pakistan, as that match's result was more important for India's qualification.Apart from these two matches I dint feel like watching others and I just chipped in for the scores.
Now here arises the question are ODI's necessary?
People are saying ODIs should be stripped off, some are suggesting modifications for the game.
My suggestion is pretty simple, just reduce the number of ODI matches played. Its better to have just the world cup every four years, so that people still have the interest in it as its played once in four years and also the format lives on.
Its not fair to strip off the format in which legends like Sachin, Lara, Ponting, Akram, Warne, Donald have created history. If that format goes off then the players of the game too gets vanished along with it. For example consider Michael Bevan, Lance Kluesner. These players are considered among the best in ODI and these players have not played much of test cricket too. So if ODI is stripped off, then people after 10 or 15 years will never get the opportunity too know about these legends and their legacy goes off along with the ODI format. This shouldn't happen. But at the same time we cant expect ODI to survive in coincidence with T20. Whether people like it or not,T20 is the future and its going too stay until T10 or T5 comes(hope those things never comes) :-P
Something has too be done by the ICC to balance both of these.Now the Champions league,T20 tournament has started. Its entertaining,fast and also gives the feeling of watching a good cricket match.So this is the game for the next twenty years. But the only issue is, we wont have the opportunities to watch the orthodox cricketing shots but instead we ll have the opportunities for new innovations like the dilscoop and switch hit. So lets enjoy the swashbuckling champions league and have fun.
Hope to see you later...
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