Bangalore, April 01: The issue of cricketing overkill has come into focus yet again with Deccan Chargers skipper Adam Gilchrist stating that the cricketing calendar is over saturated. He stated that Cricket is reaching a point when there are too many matches and called on the administrators to address and fix this issue immediately.
According to a report on cricinfo, Gilchrist was quoted that the game must not have inconsequential matches. He pointed out that Cricket needed to change with the times and called for the creation of an iconic series for every country on the lines of the Ashes. This would help Test cricket to survive and Twenty20 can be used to attract new people to the game.
He added “I think there’s room for all three formats. I believe T20 is a very powerful format to get many new and young viewers. The key, really, is the amount of cricket that is being played. We are close to saturation point and that will be detrimental to game’s interest. If we can make it better, people will get the calendar and go wow,” he said.
Gilchrist believes that creation of a new breed of wicket keeper batsmen is encouraging and it is even more so because it has not come at the cost of their skills with the gloves. “When people comment on wicketkeeper-batsmen, does it mean they do not rate other wicketkeepers who’re out there, for their keeping?”
“I remember Rod Marsh and Ian Healy who are my idols, my heroes. All we try to do, as wicket-keepers, is to do the best job we can. The same principle applies when we go out to bat. However, you are expected to contribute a lot more with the bat in this day and age than 20 or 30 years ago,” Gilchrist said.
Gilchrist was full of praise for fellow wicketkeeper Mark Boucher who tops the all-time list of wicketkeepers, with 494 Test dismissals to his name. “I’m thrilled to see him hold that record because he has been around for 13 years. We cal all talk about Sachin Tendulkar and his 20 years in the game, but here’s a wicketkeeper who has put in over a dozen years and goes about his work without any fuzz. Mark is indeed one of the greats of this game.”
Gilchrist stated batsmen like Virender Sehwag and Matthew Hayden have changed the way Test openers approach their batting. “Sehwag and Hayden has been phenomenal. They have made people realize that the first session of a Test didn’t have to be all about survival. Those two hours can also be used to dominate and set the flow of the game your way. This kind of approach will benefit test cricket immensely. Both spent some time out of the team and came back, clear in their minds, that they wanted to play in a certain way. They may have missed out sometimes, but stayed focused,” Gilchrist said.
Gilchrist believed that Sachin Tendulkar has changed his batting style over the years. “Earlier, Sachin would play in a very dominating manner. In the years after that, he has evolved and is playing a different role. I guess the expectations of the entire population of India have forced this change upon him. Rahul Dravid and the others in the core group have also contributed so well. Sachin has always had the determination and the hunger, but he has gone on a different plain during the last 12 months or so.
After finishing at the bottom of the IPL table in 2008, Deccan Chargers hit back strongly to win the tournament in the second edition. Gilchrist said that creating a unique team culture within the squad was the key to their success.”There are a lot of fine details that have to be focused on. However, we spent a lot of time in the first IPL talking about the appreciation of the different cultures in our dressing room. There were seven nationalities and we appreciated each others cultures. We spent too much time on that without realizing that we had to create our own culture, a Deccan Chargers’ culture.
“It’s hard to describe this culture, but it’s there within the group. It is creating an atmosphere everyone wants to be a part of, everyone wants to get into. So that’s an example of one part of the Deccan Chargers’ culture, which is total commitment. That is how you go about preparing to play decent cricket,” Gilchrist said.
——–Agencies