Harbhajan Singh
Harbhajan Singh may say that there shouldn’t be anything drastic done to change the format of the five days cricket matches, but has himself suggested something as radical. In a day and age of reduced spectator-support, and calls to modify the longest format of the game to bring in the spectators, Harbhajan Singh has said that the way forward could be to increase the number of test matches every year!
Harbhajan Singh said that if one were to look at the Ashes, the format seemed truly alive and kicking. He said that looking at the crowds, it looked like they were similar to the ones found in the ground for the T20 format. Hence, he added, it would make sense to increase the test matches and that he would love to play 12-15 test matches every year.
The ICC has been suggesting different changes to the game like having different coloured balls for day-night test matches and an experiment on the same lines will be conducted next year when Bangladesh tour England.
The thing to be noted is that Ashes was an aberration in terms of its crowd support with most of the grounds for the other test matches remaining less than half full. Australia’s tour to India had seen the same woes, while the lesser nations like West Indies and Bangladesh haven’t had more than a man and a dog in the stadium.
He added,
“The spectators may not like Test cricket that much but as a cricketer I want to play more Test matches. It is just you need to bring a lot of people into the stadium by creating that kind of buzz in the market.”
Sachin Tendulkar had recently said that there should be free entry to the grounds for school kids for the test matches. This will encourage more youngsters to take up cricket and in turn fill up the stadiums and bring in the atmosphere as well.
Harbhajan concurred with that suggestion and said that if a player like Tendulkar even played a Ranji trophy game, there would be a crowd of 25000 plus that could turn up. So, according to the off-spinner, if the games were properly managed, crowds would come in for the games.
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