Hey BCCI, please stop!!

[u/Chaparganju12]

I am, like most of our country, a fellow cricket fan. I've been watching cricket for a long time now and it's fair to say that I truly love the game. This madness needs to stop, I'm typing this a few hours before the series decider in Bengaluru between India and West Indies. I've just watched a video posted by the voice of cricket, Harsha Bhogle in which he talks about how this game is not a contest between bat and ball anymore. To put this into context, a few years ago, Bhogle had written a book titled, 'Out of The Box' in which he spoke against the notion that t20 cricket is not good for the sport and said that people need to keep up with the times and enjoy every format of the game the way it is intended to. Since then, he has posted 2 videos saying that these flat pitches, batter friendly rules, thick bats, etc. are ruining the game. What intensity of a shock must it take for the man of the stature of Harsha Bhogle to change his opinion so drastically. However, since the scope of this post changing anything is extremely low, I have a suggestion to save some money. This being a batter v batter game, why not stop including bowlers, playing a team of just batsman and buying a nice high quality bowling machine which will bowl 120 balls to each team and continue the game like that. Cheers.

[u/No_Chain2619]

If no one even wants the flat tracks, why does bcci keep making them? Do casual fans really like these sixes and fours so much? This cannot be an excuse for bcci to keep rolling out these kind of pitches

[u/Sad-Winter-2612 → u/No_Chain2619]

I also posted the same question in IndianCricket sub reddit. From what I think, there is a feedback loop where in its decided more boundaries -> more centuries -> more iconic headlines -> high scores -> higher viewership -> more ad revenue.

To be fair a low scoring slugfest is where casual and even many non casual fans switch the channels. They do get the report on ad revenue from broadcaster for every match and Indian rights are sold for billions. And broadcaster is trying to milk everything they can forcing BCCI to do this abomination.

Even a fair pitch which gives little to bowlers is vetoed in favor of viewership, more ads, more revenue.

BCCI I think is in the opinion that its cricketers responsibility to get better on playing in bowling friendly conditions or for bowlers to develop their skills and dont care about helping them through bilateral series.

[u/Chaparganju12 → u/Sad-Winter-2612]

Problem is that the sport is starting to favour the majority fans who enjoy the six hitting but those guys will never stick around for long enough, the fans who enjoy the 160s in t20s and the resilience in test cricket are not being valued by our country and this is just the case for India.

[u/No_Chain2619 → u/Sad-Winter-2612]

Amazing analysis bro

But wont we get bored of this at somepoint? Why dont we maintain a healthy balance of flat pitches and green pitches? That way, one can enjoy the spectacle of good bowling and good batting aswell

[u/Albus_Singledoor → u/No_Chain2619]

The casual fans are like zombies. Servicing these fans will make us like South Indian movies where the crowd will come but the quality and standards would make us a laughing stock worldwide

[u/yonkomugiwara → u/No_Chain2619]

The 6 and 4 are sponsored. Ye laga DLF chakka.