Shane Bond has joined the bandwagon of all those cricketers who have retired from the Test match cricket to be able to concentrate on the shorter, and dare one say, the more lucrative format of the game – the ODIs and the T20Is.
Bond made this announcement after he was injured in the first test match of the series against Pakistan and missed playing in the second and the third game. He was the man of the match in the first game as his five-wicket haul had won them the game.
Shane Bond
Bond had also earlier returned back from the Indian Cricket League to play for the country. Earlier, he had joined the unsanctioned ICL but with the league not having paid the cricketers for months now, he opted to return back to play for his country. He had a good couple of months for his country, but then the back injuries have returned back to haunt him. And with the five day format of the game, the most taxing for the quick bowlers, it was only a matter of time when he decided to break away from it.
This also allows him a better chance to play for the franchises in the IPL as he wouldn’t be away during the time his country played test matches.
Already Andrew Flintoff has announced his retirement from the test matches citing the same reasons as Bond – a body that was not able to take up the load of all the three formats of the game. Flintoff then went one step further and refused to take up the contract that the English Cricket Board set for him for the shorter formats of the game; in the process settling for the role of a freelance cricketer.
Bond said, “I’ve worked really hard to get back to Test match fitness – it’s what I’ve been working towards for the past two years – and I feel I gave as much as I could. But looking back, so many of my injuries have come during Test cricket. Unfortunately my body just won’t let me continue to play at that level, given the workload and demands of Test cricket.”
Our opinion about the issue:
Bond is not the first cricketer in this day and age to make such an announcement, and he certainly will not be the last one to do so. The blame cannot lie on the player, as he has the option to pick and choose what he wants to do with his career. If he does decide to go ahead with playing only the shorter format of the game, there is not much that the board can do; and definitely not the New Zealand Board, which has a paucity of talent any which way.
Also, the issue with the bowlers is that in the current scenario of really batting-friendly pitches in the world, injuries are becoming more commonplace. This means that the chances of fast bowlers quitting tests is more than the batsmen doing the same.
(Image credit: Wikipedia)
Sign up for our daily email newsletter:
