| To watch cricket in 1992 and witness how much | | | | you'd keep seeing the overs fly by, but the score |
| world cricket has changed is quite staggering. Do You | | | | just wouldn't move. |
| Remember What World Cricket ODIs Used To Be | | | | So, even after Australia's huge score, I felt pretty |
| Like? | | | | confident that a battling line-up featuring Tendulkar, |
| By pure chance your scribe found himself planted in | | | | Shastri, Azzharuddin, Manjreakar and Dev could easily |
| front of a replay of an India V Australia ODI match | | | | make this score in 40 overs, let alone 50! However, |
| from the SCG in 1992 today. Yes, it may have had | | | | after just a few highlights of some dodgy looking |
| something to do with a good dose of | | | | Shastri lofted drives, I noticed that the score in the |
| procrastination...but I was very happy to indulge in | | | | top corner of the screen read 2/94 off 30 overs!! 30 |
| what was an extraordinary historical document...let | | | | OVERS!! Honestly, to be two wickets down and have |
| me explain... | | | | 94 runs off 30 overs is just crazy! Why don't I |
| The game was a final of the Australian ODI series of | | | | remember ODI cricket being this slow?? The funny |
| that year, and featured such memorable early 90s | | | | thing is that the commentators felt that this was a |
| stars such as Allan Border, the Waugh twins, Ravi | | | | pretty good platform, and the crowd seemed to be |
| Shastri and an unbelievably young Sachin Tendulkar. | | | | going nuts. Tendulkar, the youngest batsmen, was |
| Now, sorry to spoil it for you, but the Aussies won | | | | fairly quick in making his 69, but the others were just |
| the game, and I wanted to get that out of the way, | | | | cathartic. They limped their way close, but this was |
| because it wasn't really the point of my intrigue. | | | | no tortoise and hare story...they simply wore |
| What was most interesting was the way the game | | | | themselves out going painstakingly slow. |
| was played, you see the winning score was a | | | | So, how time has changed the game eh?? Now ODI |
| meagre 208, and yet this was considered a very | | | | cricket, which regularly sees teams getting over 300 |
| good score! | | | | in 50 overs, is considered slow. The 'dead overs' |
| The Australian openers, David Boon and Geoffrey | | | | between 20 and 40, where teams score at a mere 5 |
| Marsh (whose son now plays for the team), got the | | | | or 6 runs an over, and dismissed as boring. Perhaps |
| Aussies off to what Bill Lawry described as an | | | | everyone should just take a deep breath and think |
| 'exciting start', by 'smashing' 38 runs off the first 15 | | | | back to the not so distant past, where a boundary |
| overs!!! WOW!!! Now you might see 38 off 15 these | | | | every 5 overs was simply pulsating...or maybe, if |
| days, but it'd be 15 balls, not overs! The excellent | | | | you're like me, and you can't remember, then use |
| Indian spinner Venkatapaty Raju then scaled back | | | | your next allocated 'procrastination time' to fish out a |
| this 'electrifying' start, before Allan Border went nuts | | | | replay of a game from times past...you'll be swept off |
| by scoring his 38 at 'close to a run-a-ball'. It was truly | | | | your feet, just not very quickly. |
| extraordinary to see this in highlight form, because | | | | |