It was brilliant yesterday that Virat Kohli lent his support to Sachin Tendulkar's opinion that "Having 2 new balls in one day cricket is a perfect recipe for disaster" for the bowlers around the world by actually saying that the good old days of ODI cricket were better. Earlier, Tendulkar had sparked a debate by saying that the lost art of reverse-swing must be restored to serve a better balance between the bat and ball.
It is this competition that is the essence of our sport and games like the one in Trent Bridge, were England scored 481 on a flat pitch without any seam, swing and spin to be challenged by, does very little to help the case. Facing a cricket ball has to be a challenge.
Recently, the great Sachin Tendulkar had tweeted on the dreaded day at Trent Bridge that, “Having two new balls in one day is a perfect recipe for disaster as each ball is not given the time to get old enough to reverse. We haven’t seen the reverse swing, an integral part of the death overs, for a long time,”
Having 2 new balls in one day cricket is a perfect recipe for disaster as each ball is not given the time to get old enough to reverse. We haven’t seen reverse swing, an integral part of the death overs, for a long time. #ENGvsAUS
— Sachin Tendulkar (@sachin_rt) June 21, 2018
Virat, before his departure for the tour of England, said, I think it’s brutal for the bowlers. I have played ODI cricket when there was only one new ball allowed and reverse swing used to be a massive factor in the latter half of the innings, which I think as a batsman was more challenging,”
Waqar Younis, who knows a thing or two about the impact of legal reverse swing, quoted to Sachin's tweet as, "Reason why we don’t produce many attacking fast bowlers..They all very defensive in their approach...always looking for change ups..totally agree with you @sachin_rt reverse swing is almost vanished.. #SAD"
Reason why we don’t produce many attacking fast bowlers..They all very defensive in their approach...always looking for change ups..totally agree with you @sachin_rt reverse swing is almost vanished.. #SAD https://t.co/hPHoMXujcr
— Waqar Younis (@waqyounis99) June 21, 2018
Contemporary bowlers like Stuart Broad and Mitchell McClenaghan echoed the same sentiment as well.
Broad tweeted, in a reply to Michel Atherton who had tagged Tendulkar in his tweet,"I find reverse swing really exciting to watch, I’d like to see it back in the white ball game"
I find reverse swing really exciting to watch, I’d like to see it back in the white ball game
— Stuart Broad (@StuartBroad8) June 22, 2018
McClenaghan replied to Sachin's tweet, "Could it be said any better? - don’t think so! ????????????"
Could it be said any better? - don’t think so! ????????????
— Mitchell McClenaghan (@Mitch_Savage) June 22, 2018
The game is richer with players like Virat Kohli. Time has come to make the ODI great again.
