One Day Cricket at Crossroads

When SriLanka attacked bowlers in the first fifteen overs to get around a hundred runs, the world thought this was what ODI cricket was all about. Smash the bowling in the first fifteen and last ten overs in push it around in the middle. Many teams tried this and were successful on dead pitches but the ploy completely failed on the seaming and bouncy wickets of England and Australia. Most teams got the 90 runs but there after realized that they lost half their side. Perhaps the greatest success story and probably the greatest failure of this scheme was it's inventor SriLanka. They invented it and used it to win the World Cup '96 and then used it in WC '99 and came last amongst the 9 ICC members. The World Cup experience proved that this theory was not one to be employed at all times.

Then Australia came up with different teams for both forms of the game. They, as the world thought, had again changed the game to the extent that all others should follow. Other teams inducted pinch-hitters and sluggers into their one-day teams and the results were again disastrous. Of course recognized batsmen cannot be substituted by these makeshift batsmen who when fire look glorious but when fail only add to the mounting pressure on their side. A good example of this is Pakistan's experiment with Shahid Afridi and England's experiment with Alistair Brown. Both players were inducted into the teams in place of recognized batsmen in order to get the team off to a flying start. But as was generally the case they got out with meager contribution to their names.

In my opinion good sound batsman should be taught to use a little more bottom hand and they could do the job equally well. This was what happened to Jayasuriya earlier a middle-order batsman, he was trained by Dave Whatmore to use this technique and to hit the ball over the in field. This paid immediate dividends and now most teams are reverting back to their traditional openers.

Pakistan, Australia, South Africa, India and SriLanka seam to have sorted this problem out but the rest haven't. With the West Indies experiment with Ridley Jacobs and more often than not he fails. Same is the case with Nick Knight. New Zealand and Zimbabwe also tend to be harsh on their all-rounders Chris Cains and Paul Strang. Both of them play an important role while bowling for their respective side. And the pressure of getting the team off to a good start will certainly affect their performance.

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