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Back-to-back awards for [MENTION=147163]Bilal Ahmad15[/MENTION] for his wonderful post on why fans should accept the reality of where cricket stands today and move on or give up on watching cricket!
http://www.pakpassion.net/ppforum/s...tch-and-enjoy-cricket&p=11744723#post11744723
http://www.pakpassion.net/ppforum/s...tch-and-enjoy-cricket&p=11744723#post11744723
I have been watching from 2016, so Im different to the OP, cricket was good to watch until the horrible 2019 super over moment. Ever since then I have become very frustrated at the sport. I don't want to write all of my thoughts on this since I am wanting to move on from this rubbish sport.
Basically, to summarise, the problems are;
Disorganisation - a random series after random series that has no purpose, and then a brand new useless T20, or T10 or something else league gets made, and what ends up happening is a screwed up schedule.
Thinking - Continuing on from disorganisation, basically, nowadays, if an ODI or Test Match is not part of a tournament, then it just becomes so useless. We simply cannot be having ODI and test matches that have no purpose, in terms of not being part of a competition. So what does this mean? There cant be anymore Bilateral ODIs, no more Bilateral Test Matches. Bilateral pretty much means useless (not joking).
So You may be thinking, what about ODIs then, if we cant have bilateral ODIs? My solution is to no longer have the ODI world cup, and instead have a ODI world championship, (same thing as test championship, except for ODIs). The reason for this, is because at the moment, ODI cricket is in a dead situation where, for every 4 year cycle, in 3 years and 11 months ODI cricket is dead and useless, but for the one month, it is exciting to watch for most, and that one month is the ODI World Cup. Basically, this is not sustainable, a horrible way to run a format/ sport. And besides, T20 World cup is more popular, as its same format as the trending T20 leagues, IPL, PSL etc. and in T20 there are higher chances of upsets happening, meaning a smaller team bating one of the top teams, which we just saw in the 2022 T20 WC, Netherlands beat South Africa, Zimbabwe beat Pakistan. smaller Teams are essential for sport to exist, and is one of many reasons why test cricket and ODI cricket is suffering.
You may now be asking; At the moment, there is an ODI WC super league being played, which is pretty much identical to my proposed World ODI Championship, but this super league isn't very popular, so why do you think this ODI world championship will work? And I say, its because the ODI super league is not recognised as the premier event for ODI cricket, people still recognise ODI world cup as premier event. And so this super league is viewed as (pretty much) another useless tournament like champions trophy or Asia Cup.
And the idea is for the ODI and Test Championship to have the same time frame, meaning spans across two years. and basically there should be a ODI championship semi finals and finals (both of which are three match series), and test championship 3 match series finals. For example; ODI world championship and test championship both being in July 2022, and the last matchweek for the league finishes in March 2024. Then one country, lets take England, will host the Test championship finals and also the ODI championship semi finals and final in June - July 2024. So they are right next to each other. This two year span should be the championship cycle. and then have the T20 WC every four years, so in 2027, 2031, 2035.
More on Bilateral series. Basically, any cricket matches cannot be organised by anyone except ICC. this will prevent the likes of India and Australia or Pakistan and England playing each other every 6 months, but we all know how greed and money wont stop this.
And now for international T20s; there should also be no more T20 bilateral series, as having too many t20 matches, is useless, despite the fact is does bring a high number of viewers, and financial success. This is a short term success, but this is also long term failure.
What I would do is have a T20 friendly, just like how international football teams play one friendly match against each other, not three or five or seven. I Wont go into more detail.
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And now for the huge elephant; T20 Leagues, and the new formats.
T20 Leagues: I am not one of those people who has the huge unnecessary hate against these "circus cricket" T20 leagues. I understand that T20 leagues are one of the few valuable assets left in cricket, and I understand and accept why pretty much every nation has made a T20 league, while many players spend the whole year playing these "leagues". So instead of ignoring it, we must address it, as the money does the talk and the decisions.
Firstly, in order to achieve a success, in terms of organisation and so better entertainment and understanding, from these T20 leagues:
1) None of These T20 Leagues, Pakistan super "league", Indian Premier "League", Big Bash "League", are actually leagues, they are all tournaments, as they are one month long. My definition of a league is a competition that runs for a longer time period, like 8, 9 - 12 months. Having one month tournaments every single month of the year against an again repeated, is actually a huge reason as to why cricket is suffering and is so boring. One month tournaments are actually supposed to be rare, like once every two years or once every four years (example world cup), but in cricket, they come every month...
2) So lets say we have decided that the T20 leagues will run from July / August in the first year till April/ May in the next year. Firstly, due to weather conditions, only a few number of countries can host a league with this time scale. And those countries are India, Pakistan, Caribbean (which should join with the USA and Canada and create a Major league Cricket), Bangladesh and partially Australia. So, the leagues that should have an expanded timeline to 8 - 9 months, are; IPL, PSL, BBL, BPL and CPL. All the other leagues remain as one month tournaments, and get less screening time on sports channels.
3) In order for this new schedule to work out, the T20 Leagues cannot clash (meaning played at the same time) with international cricket. This is quite difficult to figure out, but if all the useless bilateral series is removed, then there is a lot more space than most think. T20 leagues and International cricket needs to work with each other, not clash. And so, this would mean The 8 month T20 leagues cannot be played form October to November, mid February to mid march, and June to Mid July, because ICC events are regularly held in these months. T20 Leagues also cannot be played from December to Mid January, because a heavy amount of international cricket is held in this time period. So once again its difficult to navigate, however, if we take another example The UEFA champions league, football competition, is successful even though it takes a massive break from november to february. One way to work the schedule out in having a 'T20 franchise break' just like how in football there is an international break.
4) If you haven't figured out already, this means IPL, PSL, CPL, BBL, BPL, and more can no longer there own separate window, most will have an issue with this, but if t20 leagues want to be organised and successful this is how it must be. And this leads me to my next crucial point: Players can only play for one team in one league, one team only.
5) We cant be having the same teams across multiple nations, example a Lahore Qalandars team in Pakistan, South Africa, and Ireland or a kolkata knight riders team in India, Trinidad, South Africa, Dubai. How about some creativity!!!
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Now For the introduction of the new formats such as The Hundred, T10, 6Sixty, Ninety-Ninety, 3IC:
The introduction of these new formats should have never been allowed and should never ever be allowed, the people that made these new formats should be punished, all these new formats should be removed once and for all. My points of reason:
So a person is interested in the sport of cricket, and so he wants to learn about the rules of cricket, different formats, the competitions of cricket. Firstly, this person reads about the rules, the fielding positions, powerplay, of the different formats and is understandably confused. There isn't much anyone can do about this, as it takes time watching match after match to understand this sort of stuff in cricket.
Then this person decides to see the top competitions that are currently happening in cricket, because who wouldn't. He sees there is test cricket, ODI cricket, T20 internationals, and T20 leagues. alright so far. But wait, then he sees there is something called 'The Hundred' where it seems the match has 100 balls per innings, and then something called T10 in Dubai? He turns on the TV and sees a competition in the Caribbean called 6Sixty, but wait there is something called 3IC??? My point is; having Test Cricket, ODI and T20 is already too many formats imo, but these three formats can still work. But having hundred, t10, 6sixty, and all the other new rubbish, creates too much confusion, too much disinterest, not only fo new fans, but fore current fans. Complete disorganisation. Again, there should be no formats except ODI, Test, T20. But again, greed is strong.
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Lastly, the things everyone talks about. In ODI, scores of 350 are chased down, while t20 teams make 220, and so many nations have flat pitches for test that one sided matches where team score 500, 600, 400 are frequent. Lets not also forget the boundaries that make me sick...
In summary, the game nowadays is too heavily favoured towards batting. The biggest problem that needs to be solved is the pitches. The best example to prove this. in 2016 - 2018, England was developing as a greta LOI team, in their home they smashed Pakistan for 441, smashed Australia for 482, scored 350,360, 370 (and still do today) like it was nothing, and its mainly because of flat pitches. but in the 2019 world cup, when ICC has more control the pitches are more neutral, and guess what? The matches in the 2019 world cup were a lot better, less useless slogging, less 350, 400 scores, and it was a great world cup.
The best argument I have read (which was on PP), as to why Pitches are so flat, and the game is batting favoured, is; lets say England makes 400 and the other team is a smaller team that has no chance of chasing this, a flat pitches means its less challenging for batsman, and so it increases the chances of this smaller team getting bowled out early and so the whole 50 overs is completed which means broadcasting time is not lost. This is an understandable short term issue but in the long term its a decline, because competition is essential. Scores fo 400, 350 on flat pitches is not competition.
And also if one batsman is scoring a quick blazing hundred or fifty, it looks unique and great, but if everyone in team scores quick fifty, hundred, fours here from a tail ender, six there and everywhere from number 10, it becomes useless, no competition, means no sport.
But end of the day nothing is going to change about this rubbish sport, which is filled with greed, greed and greed. The people who run cricket alos don't realise that things in the confusing sport of cricket needs to be simple. They also lack the creativity and cricket entertainment smartness. I don't like to criticise but I've been heavily frustrated by this rubbish sport and ICC.
Which is why I only want to watch PSL now. I do have some ideas on PSL also.
So my advice to the OP is to either deal with it, or if you are like me and you cant, then best to stop watching cricket frequently.
