Batting legend revisits his earlier suggestion and tells Sandeep Dwivedi the concept would give a new meaning to one-day cricket
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Sachin Tendulkar says,” in ODIs on a number of occasions at certain venues in the world, it was felt that if you win the toss, you have kind of won the game unless you bat really poorly. The main reason being the dew factor. (FILE)
Sachin Tendulkar had once suggested that a four-innings ODI could make the format more interesting. Years later, he says his idea was misunderstood; he wasn’t asking for batsmen to get two chances but it was a thought aimed at making ODIs a more even contest that didn’t depend on toss and conditions.
My idea of converting ODIs into four innings was kind of misunderstood. Generally, it was felt that I was asking for two batting innings for batsmen while the idea was to give a fair chance to both teams.
It was the case of you getting to bat only once; a team only had 10 wickets spread over two innings of 25 overs each. This would give a new meaning to one-day cricket. We have to be fair to both teams.
In ODIs on a number of occasions at certain venues in the world, it was felt that if you win the toss, you have kind of won the game unless you bat really poorly. The main reason being the dew factor.
My idea was that both teams bat for 25 overs in dry conditions and also bowl 25 overs each in wet conditions. So, in this case winning the toss was possibly a 60 per cent advantage and not 90 per cent. Many times in ODIs, it is not skill against skill, sometimes it is skill against the skill of the other team to adapt to the conditions.
Sometimes it was the case of bad light and rain. If you remember the 2007 World Cup final, Sri Lanka was batting against Australia in the dark. Take the case of the 2002 Champions Trophy final in Sri Lanka that was impacted by rains and was extended to two days.
First time Sri Lanka batted first, they played all 50 overs. We batted for 15 overs [2 overs] and rain interrupted the game. So, in all we played 65 overs [52 overs]. The next day again Sri Lanka batted for 50 overs and we batted some 12 overs [8.4 overs]. Again, it was a rain-interrupted game and both teams were declared joint winners. While in reality in two days, we had played close to 125 overs [110.4 overs]. So, in case we had 25 overs each, both teams would have planned accordingly.
