Opinion 2011: A year that witnessed a lot but saw little change

To be honest,the events of 2011 with the DRS did cause me to question my support to it,especially with respect to ball tracking and the hot spot. The failure,at the World Cup,of ball tracking to be effective if the point of contact was greater than two and a half metres from where the ball pitched,or indeed less than 30 cms,suggested it was only the speed of the cameras that mattered. In countries with large budgets for production,ball tracking will work better than in others with lower budgets. And so the inequity will remain anyway. And while the creators of hot spot will say they have a better product now,it had a forgettable tour of England.

Until we get reliable figures on accuracy for different versions of ball tracking we might have to stay with something that will be available everywhere. And so maybe we should stick to eliminating howlers — pitch map to judge where the ball pitched and hit pad,line calls and super slow motion cameras to look at inside edges for lbws. But this debate must end soon. It is already boring.

Test cricket was excellent in 2011 as it has been for over a hundred years. If there was criticism at all it had to do with the ridiculous two Test series that we were subjected to. There is an ebb and flow within a game as there is within a series and the game cannot ignore that. And luckily,players are expressing their point of view more strongly now. Hopefully it is a trend that wll continue in 2012. Gagging players doesn’t help.

The spectators and the patrons seem to like T20 cricket and it polarised,to borrow a phrase from the Hindi film industry,the classes and masses. The ratings for the IPL,a percentage rather than absolute number,dropped but the number of viewers still went up and the first edition of the Big Bash in Australia opened to encouraging viewership numbers. Personally I will be delighted if the BBL does well because for cricket to be financially strong,T20 has to be strong. The IPL that bears the brunt of the assault from the traditionalists isn’t faultless,it isn’t entirely virtuous but it is still a teenager and they are allowed the occasional wild side to them remember! At one point in England I had to remind people that the problems with the Euro,the trouble in Afghanistan or indeed the 2G scam weren’t all the direct outcome of the IPL.

Meanwhile the sub-continent produced an excellent World Cup; the final had two classic innings from Jayawardene and Dhoni,England at last became the team they could always have been and Australia produced an excellent new crop of fast bowlers.

There was deep personal sadness too. My first cricket hero and an outstanding gentleman,Tiger Pataudi,left us and so did the person I always looked up to for his writing and intellect,Peter Roebuck. These were custodians of the game and we need as many as we can get.

And my image of 2011 was the moment immediately after the World Cup win for India. As the cameras searched for Tendulkar,as the players held him aloft,as sound bytes flowed,the captain receded into the background with dignity. He let Tendulkar have his moment and for that it will always be Dhoni’s World Cup for me.