Deep Backward Point

I’m not complaining, in many ways I like the recent editorial changes at Cricinfo. But you have to admit, this is new:

Just saying.

I won’t watch the India v. South Africa T20 on Friday. And if you believe it’s a travesty that this match is taking place, then you shouldn’t either.

Don’t follow it ball-by-ball online.

And don’t talk about it online.

This is the only power we have as fans. So let’s exercise it. This is the last I will speak of this game.

∞

What game?

There is a very 21st century term to describe what happened to Cricinfo yesterday. To use the jargon of the internet age, they were “pwned” – statistically, athletically, temperamentally, and comprehensively, as a DNS error chose the occasion of pwnage to subject their victims to one of the most resounding marmalisations in Internet history.

∞

You remember this headline?

Some of us won’t forget it soon.

Fifteen.

Four of them will sit out the match.

And since the team is almost identical to the Asia Cup team, each of those four will have only recently returned from Bangladesh. And will have perhaps three days plus jet lag to get in the groove for the IPL.

It was ridiculous to take eleven players to South Africa for this match. It’s a tragedy to take fifteen.

∞

Fair warning, BCCI: you can screw with other boards, with your sponsors, with franchises or with money all you want and I’ll shrug my shoulders.

You screw with the players or you screw with the fans, and it’s war.

A while ago, I quoted a passage from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back to make a tortured analogy about T20 and Test cricket. Here’s what Ben Affleck (playing himself) says to Matt Damon:

Ben Affleck: You’re like a child. What’ve I been telling you? You gotta do the safe picture. Then you can do the art picture. But then sometimes you gotta do the payback picture because your friend says you owe him.

Back then, I said T20 is the safe picture– the one you do for the money. Test cricket was the art picture– the one you do for love of the game.

And this crazy, detestable one-off match between India and South Africa?

That’s the payback one you gotta do because your friend says you owe him.

Previously on DeepBackwardPoint:

• What Ben Affleck and Matt Damon Can Teach Us About Twenty20
• You Have Got to Be Kidding Me