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Sunil Khandor's Blog: 2 Day Cricket
Canadian cricket has always baffled me. It seems that when we actually seem to be getting our act together, by some force of nature or habit, it all comes crashing down.
I am not going to dive into the politics and funding issues in this blog. That is a whole other story. The subject I will mostly touch upon, is development of the game, and one easy way to bring our standards up, 2 day cricket.
Everyone will probably be calling me a dinosaur at this point, calling me old fashioned and against the new 20/20 craze. I believe 20/20 has a place in the game, but it is not the be all and end all for developing the game in Canada. In fact I don't think it is a valid development tool. To me, 20/20, is something that can make the game popular. However to produce top line cricketers and raise standards, cricketers need to be training more and more importantly playing more cricket. It is as simple as that.
2 day cricket, gives players the opportunities to play more cricket.
About 8 - 9 years ago, the TDCA (Toronto District Cricket Association) introduced 2 day cricket as a seperate competition. It ran for two years and then was pulled out. The argument was, that teams took it as a 'practice' and were using it to prepare for the main one day competition. I will argue, that many of the players in the league then, were reaching an age where they would eventually stop playing. They were reaching their 'expiration' date. Not forward looking at all, coming from the largest league in North America.
As a player in the under 23 Canadian system, back then, I was astonished to hear this news. I found 2 day cricket very beneficial and useful. It promoted the 3 T's: Temperment, Technique and Tenacity.
In Australia, when I played in Melbourne, I was very fortunate to come across two day competition again as a player. I found as a batsman, it tested my technique as an opener and even lower middle batsmen, facing the second new ball. I will tell you this, the Red Kookoburra ball, is harder, and keeps its shine a lot longer. It will last a full 80 overs if maintained properly. Your technique is always under a microscope. No opportunity to take it easy. Also bowlers and captains are always looking to get you out, not contain. Containing has no purpose in two day cricket, you need to bowl sides out. So you can expect sides to keep probing for wickets and wanting to get you out. As a batsman, you relish that challenge to attack and counterattack an aggressive bowling attack. As well, your temperment needs to be at its best. Your team needs you to bat through and make runs over long periods of time.
As a bowler, you have to be on the ball, all the time. You will either have a containing or attacking role within the team, but again, your purpose in 2 day cricket is to bowl sides out. So you need to be thinking every delivery and working out batsman to find their weaknesses. I found my technique and match sense as a bowler improved, exponentially when I was playing 2 day cricket, because I had to be versatile. The versatility in my bowling, made me ask different questions to batsman and helped me exploit weaknesses to get me my wickets. In limited overs cricket, I could bowl one delivery all day and set my field for the batsman accordingly. It promoted a defensive mindset in me as a bowler.
It also helped my endurance and fitness. I was not limited to bowling 10 or 4 overs. I could bowl up to 20 overs in the day if my team wanted.
In my opinion, 2 day cricket will also help improve standards. If you look at the local league, most of the players making centuries at an Elite or Premier level are overseas players. Our local Canadian boys are making runs and centuries, but I can count these batsman on one hand. Our boys, especially our juniors need to feel what it is like to make a century. They need to feel what it is like to bat through a day or an innings, under different conditions. Too many cricketers are satisfied with making a quick 20 or 30 for their team. They will often boast about hitting a couple of boundaries. At the end of the day, what kind of standard is this.
2 day cricket will give the opportunity to batsmen, from 1 - 11, the opportunity to bat long and make substantial runs.
If we look at the overseas players in the league, we can also see the benefit of bringing back 2 day cricket. This past summer we had the opportunity to have Tharindu Mendis and Malintha Gajanayake play for our club. I has asked them as a junior how many two day games they had played before their first class debuts. Both of them had said over 30. They had said in Sri Lanka, a century is expected of you as a top order batsman. It is not a huge celebration or landmark. Your team and coaches congratulate you, but at the same time it is the expectation or standard. They further added, that 2 day cricket gave them the pedigree, confidence and temperment to perform at the first class level. To them, 2 Day cricket, gave them the opportunity to feel many times as a batsmen or bowler, what it is like to score big runs and take plenty of wickets, before they took that next step up. They had had enough games under their belt, to make that jump from being a schoolboy cricketer to the first class professional.
Are our boys less talented than other players in the world a the younger age groups. I would say not. I think we are just as talented. However, players from the Test playing nations, have more experience of playing matches. They simply play more.
If Canadian cricket wants to change its standards, the first step would be to bring back 2 day cricket. Combine the 2 day and one day points, so teams have to take it seriously.
I can guarantee that the standards will rise in our players. As a result, our performance at the international level can only improve.
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