Overreaction Monday ft. ICC’s impractical guidelines, CA vs BCCI and Sachin 1.3 lakh-dulkar

The sport of cricket could follow these simple steps and remain immune to the virus

The International Cricket Council (ICC), last week, issued a set of guidelines to be followed, by players and match officials, if and when the sport resumes. The council are hopeful of teams following the ‘advice’ as they believe it will help curb the spread of the virus. 

SC Take: In a perfect world, every cricketer who steps on to the field from this very day could just follow these guidelines and stay safe. But the truth is that a lot of these measures are neither viable nor feasible; they are, in fact, impractical. Stuff like encouraging players to shower at home (yes, it’s a part of ICC’s community cricket guideline, you can look it up), asking players to maintain social-distancing on the field (what are short-leg and silly point fielders supposed to do, bro?) and advising them to sanitize the hand ‘regularly when in contact with the ball’ is downright outrageous and simply cannot be pulled off.

I get the fact that someone - or a bunch of people - in ICC has spent days in coming up with a potentially safe way to play the sport, but all this document will end up achieving is showing the council in a good light. Now they could just boast, “Oh look how much we care about the players,” and, god forbid, if something goes wrong they could just say, “Well, it’s your fault for not following the precautions”.  Let’s not pretend that there is a ‘safe’ way to play cricket; everyone becomes vulnerable as soon as they step onto the field. 

How do you defeat the BCCI? By snubbing the IPL

Former Australian skipper Ian Chappell believes that Australian players are ‘obliged’ to stay back and play domestic cricket should it clash with rescheduled IPL dates and feels that such a move will be a way to keep the BCCI in check.

SC Take: With all due respect to Mr Chappell, the bitter truth in today’s cricket is that the BCCI and India are unassailable and invincible, and an ambitious, rebellious move to take them on would only result in one outcome - the opponent being reduced to ashes. Australian cricketers showing loyalty and protesting against India’s supposed tyranny and dictatorship by snubbing the IPL will have grave consequences for Cricket Australia; it would be a suicidal move.

Quite frankly, whether the Aussie cricketers partake in the IPL or not is inconsequential to the BCCI and even if they don’t, by no means will it dent the tournament’s reach or popularity. Should they snub the IPL, CA would considerably strain their relations with the BCCI and given what’s unfolding in the world as of this moment, in terms of finances, the last thing Australia would want to do is befoe India. And hey, Cricket Australia themselves, over the years, have not given a rat’s arse about national players partaking in domestic tournaments, so why would they, of all years in 2020, in a T20 World Cup year, want to bar their players from playing in a tournament that could help them prepare for the World Cup?

Sachin Tendulkar would have scored 1.3 lakh runs had he batted in this era

Shoaib Akhtar believes that Sachin Tendulkar, who batted in some of the toughest eras the sport of cricket has ever witnessed, would have amassed 1,30,000 runs had he batted in this era. 

SC Take: Yes, of course, I know, Akhtar’s statement was extremely exaggerated, but his judgement and his thought process are pretty clear: he feels that the current era is weak and the quality of both the wickets and the bowlers have significantly degraded. Not only is this a big misconception - often seen amongst nostalgia glorifiers and several former cricketers - but it is extremely disrespectful to the players, and, worse, unfactual. There is absolutely no doubt that Sachin, for the first 12 or so years of his career, battled some of the greatest bowlers of all time. But an undeniable fact is that there was a sharp drop in the quality of bowlers he faced towards the latter half of his career, post 2003.

Barring Murali and Steyn, there were barely a handful of other world-class bowlers he faced in that era and the batting-friendly wickets further made it easier. Are we seriously going to pretend that the 2003/04 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, played on dead wickets featuring the likes of Brad Williams, Nathan Bracken and Andy Bichel, was tougher than what we witnessed last year? Look around, this is a golden generation of bowling which has world-class bowlers in abundance, be it Cummins, Starc, Bumrah, Boult, Rabada, Ashwin, Jadeja, Steyn, Roach, Anderson or Broad. And in terms of the difficulty of pitches, between March to October 2017, there were 22 consecutive Tests which yielded a result - the longest streak in Test history. So, can we stop berating and branding the current era ‘weak’, please?

Rohit Sharma is the best Test opener in the world

Brad Hogg, who has now become a full-fledged pundit on YouTube, named his ‘Best Test XI’ and picked - wait for it - Rohit Sharma as his opener. 

SC Take: Look, Rohit is a world-class batsman and his elevation to the top in whites seems to have done a world of good to him, but let’s not pretend - even going by current form - that he is anywhere near to being one of the best openers in the world. For starters, he’s opened in only five matches and each of his three tons came against arguably the weakest South African Test team post-apartheid - that too at home.

Now, I’m not going to be all like “How dare Hogg pick Rohit in Test side” and stuff, it’s his own choice, of course, but the delusion of Rohit having conquered Test cricket has already crept into many people and Hogg is just a personification of them. A batsman who averages 26 away from home sure does have a lot to prove, so I guess any comment regarding Rohit being a ‘very good’ Test opener needs to be held back until and unless he either has a strong SENA performance or bats India to a victory at home against a strong side. Also, can we be done with this random ‘XI’ picking, already?