Why pay lip service to Test cricket?

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Everyone who says the five-day game can co-exist with the current overdose of T20 is living in a fool's paradise More...

[Crookbond]

Excellent article.

The IPL has not replaced anything in India's calendar; it is an addition to the calendar. And it is played over two months in the Indian summer. It takes up the players' time and energy - physical, mental, emotional. It is said that South African players also play in the IPL and their Test cricket has not deteriorated. It could be argued that they have won only one series at home in the last five years, the significant failure being their batsmen's on seaming tracks in Durban. Is that not linked at all to an excess of T20? It is conveniently forgotten also that when South Africa's opener and captain got injured, he chose to go through with treatment so that he came back ready for Test cricket. A certain India opener knew he needed to go down the same route to come back prepared for a much-anticipated Test series last year, but he chose otherwise. And India's best batsman chose to play in the IPL before proceeding to rest during a Test series in the West Indies, even though he had never won a series there.

:two_thumbs_up:

[Crookbond]

Myth The IPL has unearthed Indian talent that would otherwise have gone down the drain. Reality Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli and R Ashwin were established first-class players. Manpreet Gony, Swapnil Asnodkar and Paul Valthaty were IPL finds. RP Singh was once brought back based on IPL performances. The selectors have since learned their lesson. Myth The IPL has made India better chasers in ODIs. Reality When India put together their record streak of successful chases, the IPL was years away. Myth The IPL and Test cricket can co-exist, like football leagues do. Reality Football leagues don't shorten the game of football to 20 minutes, thus hampering the development of skills for the prime format. Myth Kerry Packer faced similar, misplaced, resistance. Reality Packer organised some of the most exciting five-day matches too. The IPL is keeping Indian cricketers from giving their best in Test cricket. Myth The IPL is making domestic cricket sexy Reality The IPL is taking from Indian domestic cricket and is giving back nothing. In fact, coaches say it is becoming increasingly difficult to teach kids the basics.

[Marut]

Excellent article.

[Robelinda]

Interesting, to say the least. I am so torn over T20, but I have felt all along that all 20/20 matches should be kept domestic, but i don know how realistic that is, obviously it isn't realistic at all! What a weird era we are living through, cricket-wise.

[vvvslaxman]

This article was mainly written for Manjrekar word by word .. :cantstop:

[Robelinda]

Correct me if i;m wrong, but this fellow Manjrekar has changed his stance on IPL over the last year or so? Seems he is a IPL fanboy of the highest order, like he is a teenage getting carried away in all the glitz and ignoring all the pitfalls of it all.

[Sidhoni]

OFF Topic, but just wanted to ask. The threads by the bot cannot be replied to, so how come this got replies?

[Stuge]

to me it seems like somebody lost money over IPL matches lol

[ganeshran]

This article is basically a rehash of every article written in criticism of IPL with an executive summary to add. All these points have been discussed ad-nauseum yet every article which supports/criticizes IPL keeps coming up with the same arguments. IPL, Big Bash, BPL all exist because they serve a demand for casual followers of cricket to follow fast paced cricket bundled with entertainment, along with a chance to see their favorite cricketers in action. It will continue to exist till people get tired of it and it ceases to be profitable. If the official boards stop supporting cricket, someone else like (ICL) will pop up to service this demand. Test cricket has survived more than a 100 years through a world war, LOI cricket's increasing popularity, the Packer era. Dont know why 5 years of IPL is making its custodians nervous. Of course it will never be a money spinning machine but the onus is on the boards to sustain test matches using the money they make from sources like T20 league matches.

[Needforspeed]

OK, so whats so sacred about Test cricket. Eventually any sports will survive if only it has enough following, and test cricket simply doesn't have the following or the future to sustain itself. We cannot continue will all three formats. Why not do away with Test Cricket. People say test cricket is popular in England and Australia. But look at the crowds which turns up for test cricket..middle aged and old males (40-70 age group). Where are the youngsters.? OK if poeple love Tests so much, then do away with ODIs and T20...Just watch all the Cricket Boards go into huge lossess.

[ganeshran]

OFF Topic' date=' but just wanted to ask. The threads by the bot cannot be replied to, so how come this got replies?[/quote'] Not really. The bot just creates normal threads in the news feeds forum. Chandan manages that section and moves the interesting threads to the Cricket Talk

[vvvslaxman]

IPL is good for Indian fans otherwise there will be nothing to cheer about :cantstop: . We kinda suck in all 3 formats. Hope the owners keep paying up big money to foreign players to turn up. Otherwise IPL will also die. Indian Trundlers vs Indian FTBs will be awesome :giggle:

[Robelinda]

I'd rather watch Tino Best make 95, or McGrath make 61, or Zaheer make 75 in test cricket than any T20/IPL innings. If the format I love ends up dead, then so be it, i guess my type of consumer is obsolete.

[Number]

This article is basically a rehash of every article written in criticism of IPL with an executive summary to add. All these points have been discussed ad-nauseum yet every article which supports/criticizes IPL keeps coming up with the same arguments. IPL, Big Bash, BPL all exist because they serve a demand for casual followers of cricket to follow fast paced cricket bundled with entertainment, along with a chance to see their favorite cricketers in action. It will continue to exist till people get tired of it and it ceases to be profitable. If the official boards stop supporting cricket, someone else like (ICL) will pop up to service this demand. Test cricket has survived more than a 100 years through a world war, LOI cricket's increasing popularity, the Packer era. Dont know why 5 years of IPL is making its custodians nervous. Of course it will never be a money spinning machine but the onus is on the boards to sustain test matches using the money they make from sources like T20 league matches.

+1. don't know why crapinfo keeps writing same thing on the same topic everyday.

IPL is good for Indian fans otherwise there will be nothing to cheer about :cantstop: . We kinda suck in all 3 formats. Hope the owners keep paying up big money to foreign players to turn up. Otherwise IPL will also die. Indian Trundlers vs Indian FTBs will be awesome :giggle:

Since last 9-10 months.

[superstar]

{quote]Myth The IPL has unearthed Indian talent that would otherwise have gone down the drain. Reality Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli and R Ashwin were established first-class players. Manpreet Gony, Swapnil Asnodkar and Paul Valthaty were IPL finds. RP Singh was once brought back based on IPL performances. The selectors have since learned their lesson. Myth The IPL has made India better chasers in ODIs. Reality When India put together their record streak of successful chases, the IPL was years away. Myth The IPL and Test cricket can co-exist, like football leagues do. Reality Football leagues don't shorten the game of football to 20 minutes, thus hampering the development of skills for the prime format. Myth Kerry Packer faced similar, misplaced, resistance. Reality Packer organised some of the most exciting five-day matches too. The IPL is keeping Indian cricketers from giving their best in Test cricket. Myth The IPL is making domestic cricket sexy Reality The IPL is taking from Indian domestic cricket and is giving back nothing. In fact, coaches say it is becoming increasingly difficult to teach kids the basics.

[vvvslaxman]

+1. don't know why crapinfo keeps writing same thing on the same topic everyday. Since last 9-10 months.

IN the latst 12 months India's achievements in Tests 1 impotent chase in 4th innings against West Indies 4 innings defeats 319, 298, 196 runs, 5 wicket defeat 3 wins against West Indies. CB series elimination white wash in ENgland in ODIs Asia cup elimination A solitary T20 win. 4 T20 losses IPL is here to stay. It won't go away . But i won't pretend India sucks at international level in the only sport they embrace dearly.

[ganeshran]

IN the latst 12 months India's achievements in Tests 1 impotent chase in 4th innings against West Indies 4 innings defeats 319, 298, 196 runs, 5 wicket defeat 3 wins against West Indies. CB series elimination white wash in ENgland in ODIs Asia cup elimination A solitary T20 win. 4 T20 losses IPL is here to stay. It won't go away . But i won't pretend India sucks at international level in the only sport they embrace dearly.

Which of these defeats can be blamed on IPL :hmmm: except perhaps Viru delaying his surgery to play in IPL. By that same token we should also credit our drawn Saffer series and the World cup win to IPL, which would be absurd The truth is that we lost both the series because of the decline in our much vaunted middle order and the failure of others to step up to cover the decline. The bowling lineup was never strong anyway and Zaheer is the only standout bowler among occasionally good performances by others, and even he failed in Oz. If IPL poses a threat, its in the fact that youngsters will mould their skills to suit T20 rather than the longer format, but if that happens the effect would be visible 2-3 years down the line rather than now. I personally think this would be offset by the larger number of youngsters drawn to the sport and improvement in sporting infrastructure and of domestic cricket, but only time will tell.

[vvvslaxman]

Which of these defeats can be blamed on IPL :hmmm: except perhaps Viru delaying his surgery to play in IPL. By that same token we should also credit our drawn Saffer series and the World cup win to IPL, which would be absurd The truth is that we lost both the series because of the decline in our much vaunted middle order and the failure of others to step up to cover the decline. The bowling lineup was never strong anyway and Zaheer is the only standout bowler among occasionally good performances by others, and even he failed in Oz. If IPL poses a threat, its in the fact that youngsters will mould their skills to suit T20 rather than the longer format, but if that happens the effect would be visible 2-3 years down the line rather than now. I personally think this would be offset by the larger number of youngsters drawn to the sport and improvement in sporting infrastructure and of domestic cricket, but only time will tell.

Laxman, Viru, Gauti, Sachin, Dravid, Zak not exactly IPL only legends.. But certainly a guy like Viru missed out Windies tour by opting to play IPL with injury. IPL has no credit to any of our win in Tests. Anywho point is.. we are one of the worst international team. We put up a performance in England which was worse than SL, Bangladesh. Can you refute that. IPL is a grand success because of foreign players. Just take them out. It will be a huge failure as Indian players are extremely bad in T20 games no matter what kind of combination you come up with. I don't think India will be a force in international for a very long time. From that perspective IPL is a good relief for Indian fans as some foreigners will do the job for them in IPL.

[ganeshran]

Laxman, Viru, Gauti, Sachin, Dravid, Zak not exactly IPL only legends.. But certainly a guy like Viru missed out Windies tour by opting to play IPL with injury. IPL has no credit to any of our win in Tests. Anywho point is.. we are one of the worst international team. We put up a performance in England which was worse than SL, Bangladesh. Can you refute that. IPL is a grand success because of foreign players. Just take them out. It will be a huge failure as Indian players are extremely bad in T20 games no matter what kind of combination you come up with. I don't think India will be a force in international for a very long time. From that perspective IPL is a good relief for Indian fans as some foreigners will do the job for them in IPL.

I never refuted that we performed absolutely poorly in the England and Australia series, but since the theme of the article is IPL, I dont believe IPL was the reason for our rout. It was the batting decline of our middle order at the same time along with the failure of openers. The reason why the quality of foreigners is better in IPL because only the good performers (potential) are getting bought and selected in the squads. With lesser number of spots for them in the team, only the best (out of a larger talent pool) end up playing and naturally they perform better. No cricketing nation (let alone India) can produce 9 high quality teams solely from its domestic reserve. Without foreign and Indian stars (International XI) IPL will be little more than a domestic T20 tourney which will garner little attention. If the effect of IPL has to be judged, it is to be judged by the performance of our U15, U017 teams whose formative years came after the lucrative tournament started.