Tendulkar proposes new format for One-day cricket

With the increasing popularity of Twenty 20 cricket, there is serious concern over the existence of test and one day cricket which are of comparatively longer duration than the T20 cricket.

Sachin Tendulkar, while addressing media in Mumbai said, “I think we should have 25 overs a side to start with and again you go and play 25 overs once the first inning of the opponent team is over”.

He was attending a bat endorsement function for Adidas in his hometown Mumbai. Now this batting maestro is well set to play with the Adidas logo in place of MRF logo which was there on his bat for a long time.

He also said that this idea struck his mind during the 2002 Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka. Tendulkar described, “We ended up playing 110 overs against Lankans in the final match. First Sri Lanka played their quota of 50 overs and India played 10 overs before the rain interruption. The very next day, the Lankan team again played for 50 overs and Indian team played for just 10 overs and then the rain interrupted the game again. So finally we all played more than 100 overs with no results in hand.”

The Mumbaikar also find the idea interesting because he thinks that this split of 25 overs each for two innings would negate the luck factor and the tosses would also become less crucial.

The batsman, who is the leading scorer in the one- day international game with the maximum number of centuries urged the administrators citing the reason that the result of 75 percent of the matches is evident just after the toss. But the proposed format is not dependent on the toss because for example if it is a day- night match then both the teams will have to bat under lights and so the format ensures the same conditions for each team.

This comment of Tendulkar has come at a time when several cricket boards across the world have scrapped 50 over match from its calendar. The England and Wales cricket board (ECB) dropped its domestic 50 over tournament while Cricket South Africa is planning to bring changes in their 45 over domestic competition.

Infact, the ECB is likely to propose that the International Cricket Council should conduct a formal review of the future of 50 over format after the 2011 World Cup to save its existence.

When asked about the team preparations for the Champions trophy and the season ahead, he said that the team is very well prepared now. The team has done all the planning. There is a process of heading ahead which the team will follow step by step.