Recently, the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) has recommended to use the red Dukes balls in the entire Test cricket. However, the legendary Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar has voted against standardising the ball.
At present, only England and West Indies use the Dukes balls in their home matches. Meanwhile, India uses the SG balls while other cricket countries use the Kookaburra balls, including Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
However, recently, the MCC World Cricket committee has asked MCC to standardise the ball in Test cricket. The committee has supported to standardise the Dukes balls in Test cricket in almost everywhere.
Recently, many Indian cricketers, including Ravichandran Ashwin and the skipper Virat Kohli, have questioned the standard of the SG balls. They haven’t seemed to satisfy after using the present SG balls. Meanwhile, some players have also raised continuous questions about the Kookaburra balls.
On the other hand, many cricketers have praised the standard of the Dukes balls. Even some of them have favoured playing with that ball in Test cricket.
However, Sunil Gavaskar is standing totally on the opposite side. He is firmly against the idea of standardising in cricket as he feels that these differences bring out the best part of cricket.
He told on Thursday, “Now, we are hearing that they (MCC) are taking about standardising the ball, you might as well standardise the pitches, you might as well standardise the bat, you might as well standardise everything…What’s the big deal in playing cricket… (there is this) whole idea of going overseas and winning… because you are playing in different conditions.”
Sunil Gavaskar slams the MCC World Cricket committee
The Indian cricket legend has even slammed the MCC World Cricket committee. Currently, the committee members are Mike Gatting (chairman), John Stephenson (MCC head of cricket), Shakib Al Hasan, Suzie Bates, Ian Bishop, Kumar Dharmasena, Sourav Ganguly, Tim May, Brendon McCullum, Ricky Ponting, Ramiz Raja, Kumar Sangakkara, Vince van der Bijl and Shane Warne.
Criticising the star cast committee members, Sunil Gavaskar called it a very ordinary committee. He has also felt that their proposals shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Sunil Gavaskar added, “That (MCC) World Committee is like Cricket Club of India or the National Cricket Club in Kolkata or Madras Cricket Club in Chennai. It is pretty similar to that, the MCC is saying our committee should (be) listened to (more than the) ICC Committee. And unfortunately, a lot of people take them seriously.”
Sunil Gavaskar brought out the examples of the gully cricket
Later, Sunil Gavaskar exampled the differences of gully cricket (street cricket) and further added that the standardised rules couldn’t be helpful in these cases.
The Indian cricket legend feels that every country should maintain its unique values in cricket.
He said, “I personally feel, the whole idea of cricket is the different conditions that you get. You get different conditions from ‘gully’ to ‘gully’ (street to street), leave aside country to country or city to city.
“One gully there might be something, which is just across, you can’t hit the straight ball, there might be a policeman there, there might a fish vendor coming there (while the play is on), which might not happen in next gully, so you cannot standardise.
“The whole idea of cricket and why players are recognised as being good or great is when they do well overseas, unfamiliar conditions.”
Apart from standardising the ball, the committee also recommended introducing the free-hits for the no balls in the Test cricket too. Moreover, they also suggested adding a countdown clock in Test cricket to speed up play.
Sunil Gavaskar’s prediction on India for the upcoming World Cup
When Sunil Gavaskar was asked about India’s chance to win the forthcoming World Cup, he didn’t entertain that. However, he is hopeful on the present Indian national cricket team to win the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup.
Sunil Gavaskar said, “I would be very happy to answer the question, (but) unfortunately I haven’t been able to check Virat Kohli’s palm…I cannot answer the question but I am hoping that India wins the World Cup.”
England and Wales will host the upcoming World Cup tournament that will run from 30th May to 14th July. Meanwhile, the two-time World Cup champions India will begin their new World Cup journey on 5th May against South Africa at Southampton.