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Sachin Tendulkar may have just nailed it.
Speaking at the HT Leadership Summit in India today, he suggested an idea for Indian domestic cricket that might well solve the problem the world of cricket is grappling with today.
Clearly Test teams outside the subcontinent struggle to win in the subcontinent and subcontinental teams fail in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and England.
We have discussed this ad nauseam on The Roar in recent times.
And there seems no obvious solution to this impasse, a result of which has been the lack of a clear top tier in cricket, and indeed a credible No.1 in the ICC Rankings.
So this is what he suggested for Indian domestic cricket, particularly the Ranji Trophy, which, in a bid to take away home advantage, is being held in neutral venues from this year.
All domestic matches should be played on two adjacent pitches, one innings on each pitch. And each innings should be played with a different kind of ball.
“Let us have the first innings on a green top with Kookaburra balls, which would give openers a challenge. Even bowlers will have something. Our spinners will also learn how to bowl with Kookaburra on green tops,” he suggests.
“Now let there be a pitch adjacent to the green top which would be a rank turner. Now the second innings will be played on that track with the SG Test ball which would also help our batsmen play against quality spin bowling.”
Before we laugh if off (and some people already have), let’s give it a serious thought. Because it’s an out of the box idea, but perhaps an idea whose time has come.
Imagine the Shield adopting this idea. Maybe not in it’s entirety, but for part of the season. Maybe not exactly how it’s outlined, but with improvements, and changes to adapt to local realities.
And imagine the impact.
Aussie batsmen in India will be equally comfortable against spin on rank turners, as they would be against the pacers.
The raison d’etre to prepare pitches to suit the home team will be gone.
Admittedly, a rank turner at the WACA is not going to be the same as a rank turner at Nagpur. But it will be a significant improvement on the current struggle.
The downside will of course be that someone as good as Ravi Ashwin will then be as effective in Australia as he is in Vizag!
But at least it will bring parity back at the highest level so that clearly superior teams will emerge from behind the mediocrity they are currently mired in, just because the best players don’t know how to handle alien conditions.
Obviously just the green top or dust bowl pitch and the ball cannot be used to replicate exact conditions.
Old Trafford conditions will be impossible to find outside England.
Calcutta will never have the hardness of the WACA soil.
But what we will have are players all over the world who will be far more complete cricketers able to and confident of handling home-and-away conditions when they graduate to Test cricket.
Test cricket might just have received its second wind from the man who has already given much to the game and raised the bar as far as batting goes.
And his second contribution may well change the future of the game more than his first changed its past.
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