Published on Wednesday 24 March, 2010 at 7:41 am.
T20 cricket has become a rage in most parts of the world, ever since the first T20 World Cup was played in South Africa. But this mini format of the game has received monumental acceptance within India. The widespread popularity for T20 cricket led to the development of International tournaments like the Challenger Series, which is held in the country.
But nothing comes close to the success achieved by the Indian Premier better than known as IPL. Although it faced some competition from a similar nationwide T20 tournament named Indian Cricket League or ICL, the latter could not really match up to the standards of the IPL, both in terms of grandeur and popularity.
The emergence of ICL alongside with the existing IPL created a lot of talks in and around the cricketing fraternity. But unfortunately the Indian Cricket League failed to compete with the IPL for a number of reasons.
One of the first reasons behind ICL’s downfall was the BCCI’s attitude to this tournament. The Board of Cricket Council of India that pretty much oversees all cricketing events in the country clearly declared the ICL as a rebel board.
The Cricket Board even issued a decree stating any Indian player taking part in this rebel T20 tournament would lose the chance to play for their national sides. ICL players would be even restricted from taking part in noteworthy tournaments like the Challenger’s Trophy, IPL etc. As a result most of the young talents of the country preferred to stay away from the rebel tournament, i.e. ICL. The BCCI even asked International Boards to follow their trail in restricting their cricketers from being part of the ICL.
While most Cricketing boards followed this, the English Cricket Board allowed its players to play in both competitions. This is why most teams of the ICL had retired professionals like Brian Lara, Chris Cairns, Inzamam Ul Haq, Mushtaq Ahmed etc. Kapil Dev, the legendary paceman for India and the founder of ICL was very upset with the BCCI’s decision.
The IPL has some of the brightest stars of the Indian cricket team, which included Little Master Sachin Tendulkar,Saurav Ganguly, Anil Kumble, Yuvraj Singh, Rahul Dravid etc. On the flipside most of ICL teams had some lesser known young talents. Therefore, it is only natural that the Indian Premier League enjoyed more viewership compared to its rival Indian Cricket League.
Published on Wednesday 24 March, 2010 at 7:29 am.
T20 cricket has become a rage in recent years. The T20 World Cup and the Indian Premier League have become two of the most awaited cricketing events of the world. The short version of the game is dominated by the batsmen as almost every bowler goes for a pounding every now and then.
At times even the experienced lot has found it really hard to contain the batsmen who practically look to score big with ever delivery that comes their way. Therefore, finding who is a better bowler in T20 cricket is tough but possible when using the right measures.
To be frank the best possible means of determining the skills of a T20 bowler is to go through his performance charts in recent Twenty Twenty Tournaments. Speaking of performances, a slow bowler like New Zealander Daniel Vettori is the prime candidate when it comes to finding out the best T20 bowler. His variations have troubled batsmen from most cricketing nations.
Close behind him are Aussie quickies Brett Lee and Shaun Tait. While Brett Lee has an impressive record of about twelve wickets with a bowling average of 27.83 Shaun Tait too has managed to grab four wickets with an average of 23.75. Both of them also happen to have an economy rate that is below eight.
The T20 World Cup also saw the rise of a few fresh faces in the likes of New Zealand fast bowler Mark Gillespie who crippled the Kenyan batting order in the opening match of the tournament. He managed to grab four valuable wickets for just seven runs in the three odd overs he bowled.
Promising paceman Umar Gul who was instrumental in helping the Pakistan team win the 2009 ICC T20 World Cup has showed what it takes to be a better bowler in this ultra short form of the game. Last but not the least even a slightly lesser known West Indian Deren Sammy needs special mention for his bravado since he took six wickets while conceding single figure runs.
Every bowler is subjected to some mindless thrashing in the T20 format of cricket. Therefore it would be useless to speculate or predict bowlers who will come out as better performers in these competitions. As mentioned earlier, even the most experienced ones can have a poor day in the field. Ideally a bowler’s performance for three to five T20 matches should be the yardstick to measure, whether he is a better T20 bowler than most of his contemporaries.
