‘Where is the competition between bat and ball?’ 811-run IND vs WI Guwahati ODI raises questions

KOCHI: 811 runs have been scored in 93.3 overs within the second ODI between India and West Indies at Guwahati on a ridiculous day of batting, when bowlers have been lowered to mute spectators. Once, a match like this could have been celebrated like a historic occasion. Now, it’s simply one other sport of cricket. A sport like this doesn’t thrill the viewers; it leaves them weary of watching one other run-fest on a pitch described as a ‘nationwide freeway’ by Ravi Shastri on commentary.India captain Shubman Gill’s unbeaten 223 was elegant, his impeccable timing, placement and voracious urge for food hallmarks of his expertise. So too was Rohit Sharma’s easy-on-the-eye 101. The West Indies additionally had three centurions. These batters wanted adversaries, and so they discovered none. Not from the bowlers nor from the pitch.“Extremely boring sport yaar,” Madan Lal, former medium-pacer and member of India’s 1983 World Cup-winning squad, advised TOI.“Over 800 runs scored on a paata wicket and there was completely nothing in it for the bowlers. Give the bowlers one thing to play with. Where is the competition between bat and ball?” Lal noticed.He reckons that a really perfect ODI ought to finish round 280 per facet. The type of sport that provides a real contest and the one which spectators wish to watch. For that to occur, he says the curators should put some life into these insipid wickets. “I don’t assume that can occur,” he laments.Former Delhi pacer Sanjiv Sharma attributes the development to the proliferation of T20Is and expects extra groups to chase down 400+ scores in ODIs going ahead.“In T20Is, we see groups chase down 200+ scores. Batters are carrying that confidence into the 50-over format,” he mentioned.Lal factors out that the actual fear about such run-fests is that in the long run it kills the standard of bowling. Sharma concurred. “Apart from Kuldeep (Yadav), neither facet had a match-winner with the ball. India had a second-string assault, however what in regards to the West Indies? Their bowling was abysmal,” he added.One-day cricket is in an existential disaster in a calendar surfeit with T20Is. The lure of the 50-over sport is that, in contrast to the T20Is, it provides time for a contest to construct, flip and breathe. Gill’s second double hundred on this format will discover its approach into the report books, however a report with out contest is mere arithmetic.