BCCI chief Sourav Ganguly has started a new tradition by announcing a tour to Sri Lanka. Now one team will be on a tour of England and the other team will be seen playing limited overs cricket in SL. This will allow a large talent pool in India to showcase its skills. At the same time, some questions related to this have arisen as to how effective this experiment can be for the future.
Actually, till now only teams from England and Australia have done such experiments in the recent past. Teams from India and Pakistan conducted such experiments in 1998 when one team from these two countries were playing the Friendship Cup in Toronto and the other team kept their challenge in the CWG. The team that went to the CWG had players like Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble and V.V.S. Laxman, with Ajay Jadeja as the captain of the team. The other team was led by Mohammad Azharuddin against Pakistan at Toronto. On behalf of Pakistan, Shoaib Akhtar participated in the CWG.
Four years ago, Australia’s team did a similar experiment. One of their teams was playing T20 against Sri Lanka in Adelaide and the other team was playing a Test match against Team India in Pune. Australia did not even let India score 110 runs in both innings.
Australia won both these matches, which started with a difference of one day. Similarly, one team of England went out in a one-day match against Ireland last year and the other team in the match against Pakistan. Chris Woakes and Butler batted brilliantly in the lower order to lead England to victory in the Test, while England suffered a one-day defeat against Ireland.
Now the question arises here that if two teams of one country are formed, then there will be more star players in the one team only. Will the broadcaster be ready for this in the future? Actually, there is no such problem with Australia and England. If Joe Root is the star in England’s Test team, then Eoin Morgan is no less than a big star in the ODI team. Whereas Jos Buttler plays as a wicket-keeper in the Test team, Jonny Bairstow plays in ODIs. In fast bowling, where the Test team consists of James Anderson and Stuart Broad, their ODI team consists of David Willey, Saqib Mehmood and Tom Curran. At the same time, in the spin bowling department, where England has Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid in the ODI team, Dom Bais has played in the Test team. It is clear that England’s fast bowling is stronger in the Test team, while in the ODI, their spin bowling is much stronger. While Australia’s Test team consists of Steve Smith, Tim Paine, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Starc and Jose Hazlewood, Adam Zampa, Pat Cummins and Jay Richardson play under the captaincy of Aaron Finch in ODI. It is clear that there is no dearth of star players in both teams.
The same situation can also happen for Team India in the coming times, because the recent Australian tour has given star identities to many net bowlers, so now if there is a second team, then it will also have more players who have made their own unique identity. The problem will come to the teams other than these three teams where the talent pool is not that big, nor is there any identity of the players other than 15 players.
Therefore, if the ICC includes the concept of two teams in its annual calendar, then the approach will be practical only in India, England, and Australia, whereas in the case of other teams neither the broadcaster nor the sponsors will be ready.
The rest of the teams will also have to learn a lesson from New Zealand, where the population is around the same of Gujarat or Rajasthan, but this team stands in the way of becoming the World Champion in ODIs and will play the final of the World Test Championship against India. However, in the era of the Covid pandemic, the concept of two teams can prove to be helpful in improving the economic conditions of cricket boards. Also, viewers will get to see more cricket throughout the year.