How to make Test Cricket more interesting: Part 1

I truly admire cricket in its purest, longest and most unadulterated form but with advent of swashbuckling T20 and ODI’s it has fall behind in the pecking order. It was hardly surprising to see the sparse crowd at Eden Garden, it was watched by less than 10,000 people in the stadium. What can be done to make things right, here are a few suggestions :

# Make Sreesanth dance compulsory for one and all :

Nobody brings the crowd to a stadium like Sreesanth, the Sreesanth belly dance should be made compulsory for every batsman who hit a six or four. We are tired of seeing Rahul Dravid hitting glorious boundaries one after another without displaying any real emotion, and you bet players like Yuvraj, Kohli and Rahul Sharma have got a thing for Sreesanth dance.

Celebration the Sreesanth style

If batsman are made to dance, the bowlers must be compelled to thump the pitch after every dismissal . They can either thump a wicket like a mindless freak or they could wish Namaste to departing batsman with the choicest of swear words. But the bowlers are advised to do this considering the size of batsman, they should be extra careful in performing this act in front of Watson, Kallis, Smith and Gayle.

# Make one bounce, one hand out :

To understand this suggestion, you must understand the concept of gully cricket. In gully cricket even when you pick a ball on a bounce with one hand it is deemed out, the same rule must apply in Test cricket. The sub-continent fielders in particular the Pakistani slip fielders may have undue advantage but hey ! more wickets mean more entertainment and don’t we all want to see the Sreesanth dance.

# Audience poll :

UDRS or no UDRS umpires are bound to make mistakes, and when people like Steyn, Morkel or Malinga shout in their ears they often get frightened and give incorrect decisions. In such cases audience poll can be of great use, the audience poll can be used only twice in an innings by each side. Audience will have the decision of giving out, not out or to retain umpires decision. This will increase the audience involvement, the audience poll will be conducted by Mr. Amitabh Bachchan who will in his baritone say-”and your time starts now”. You see we have laced this feature along with glamour of a celebrity.

Time for Big B to increase the TRP of test cricket

# Substitution rule :

We are often frustrated seeing our favorite Batsman getting out in late 90′s or early 10′s, to remove the agony of seeing our legendary players going to Pavilion we must introduce the substitution rule. Say for example if Tendulkar is about to reach his double century and he gets out, he can use substitution rule to bat again. However, due to substitution made by Tendulkar next 4 batsman will not bat and his next dismissal will be equal to 4 wickets. The player however will be able to make only a single substitution.

Some of the players and their equivalent substitution wickets:

1. Sehwag – 5

2. Afridi – 5

3. Kallis – 5

4. Tendulkar – 4

and many more….

Anyone would love to see him bat again but bowlers voted him out

Exception to the rule : Rahul Dravid and Ricky Ponting.

Rahul Dravid has been unanimously excluded from this rule because the bowlers threatened boycott if he played again. According to view of one bowler – ” It is very exhausting to get Dravid out even once, he should not be able to exercise this rule. I bowl at 160 kmph but he plays so well defensively that the ball lands within the pitch area, I get frustrated at least he should nick the ball, play an extravagant stroke or lose his concentration. He plays with bowler’s patience. “

Ricky Ponting is not allowed to make substitution because it is frightening enough to see him shuffle across the wickets like a hopping bunny in one inning alone , imagine the increase in no. of heart attacks if he repeats the same for the next 5 hours.

# Use of microphone :

T20 has brought this colorful routine of talking to players while they are on field, the same could be successfully implemented in tests. Just imagine what it would be like if all the players had attached microphones. Commentators and players would interact more with each other and we would get a better view of proceeding which are taking place in the middle. All 13 players on the field should have microphones and they should be able to join the conversation whenever they want.

Tony Grieg: Boy oh Boy !!! what a shot by Smith into the stands high and handsome. Siddle what is your plan now?

Siddle: Mate I will knock his head off.

Smith: That ain’t gonna happen.

Clarke: We will see to that , mate give him a bouncer to knock his head off.

Smith meanwhile hears the conversation and prepares for the pull … but he is bowled by a yorker.

Siddle: LOL … and you call yourself a batsman.

Smith : You bloody cheaters, playing against the spirit of the game.

Kallis: They will pay for this.

This story can become a folklore for your children, how the Aussies cheated and got Smithy out.