Time for India to concentrate on Twenty20s!
The Test cricket loyalists can take a backseat. While India did win their first World Cup in 1983, their second World Cup took 24 years to come. And when it did, it was in the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa when the M.S. Dhoni-led Indian side were runaway victors. Since then, there has been steady decline in fortunes for the Men in Blue and the last T20 they played (against England), the former champions came a cropper.
T20 loyalists —Lalit Modi, N. Srinivasan are requesting a change in the FTP schedule that was earlier charted with the International Cricket Council and believe that Tests and ODIs are taking a lion’s share from the shortest and most fascinating format of cricket. “I have taken this matter with Sharad Pawar, President of the ICC and we should soon come up with a proposal where Twenty20 tournaments would be played round the year,” Srinivasan said, before breaking into a friendly giggle.
Meanwhile, Modi lit up a thoughtful cigarette and mulled, “Players such as Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid and Zaheer Khan are not taking their T20 commitments seriously. As a precautionary measure Sachin was asked by the owners of Mumbai Indians to be part of their Champions League Twenty20 campaign and look how the team performed. The players’ performances went up by a few notches. It is mandatory for the seniors to be present in the club team dressing room.”
Meanwhile, Twenty20 stars Dinesh Karthik, Joginder Sharma and Murali Karthik vowed to pass on their knowledge to the younger generation. “Time for the young guns to adopt T20 full time. Youngsters should be paid obscene amount of cash to play Twenty20s and am sure we would hit back hard at the Twenty20 World Cup scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka next year,” said former Twenty20 icon Joginder Sharma, part of the victorious 2007 T20 WC campaign.
That’s not all.
The Indian Premier League, it is reliably learnt, will be sporting 6 additional teams taking the count to 15 in order to add more and more players into the tournament. “Players such as Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar, Navjot Sidhu, Arun Lal and others could be asked to be part of certain teams in order to add a vintage flavour to the game,” a source mentioned.
In an era where the actors are busy purchasing cricket teams and cricketers are too caught up becoming actors, IPL franchise owners such as Vijay Mallya, N. Srinivasan will have an option of choosing when and where the advertisements will appear on the screens during a match featuring their teams. For example, players can take a commercial break during the proceedings as and when they want, which would mean that more money would flow into this game. Also, fans will be chosen from the stadium on a given match day and upto two (could be more too!) could be asked to come and play for any team for a period of 10 overs.
Much like the Lord’s which houses the birthplace of Test cricket, India could be the haven for Twenty20s in the coming years with M.A. Chidambaram Stadium (Chepauk) in Chennai housing memorabilia marking the occasion of IPL-1 in 2008 and other memorable moments that changed the face of the game forever.
Also, statues of Joginder Sharma, Murali Karthik, Ajit Agarkar, Ravindra Jadeja, S. Sreesanth and many icons will be placed at Chepauk for the upcoming generations to take note of.
Please note: This is just a fictional work and the facts expressed in this blog are fabricated, which you would have come to have known by now…….your feedback please!!!!!
