Laxman Again Proves: Age Argument Doesn’t Exist In Test Cricket

VVS Laxman is truly team India’s saviour when it comes to bailing out the team from seemingly hopeless situations. However, not many people realize that he is also pushing 36 in terms of his ‘calendar’ age and yet, his batting aggregate in the last 15 or so test matches is close to 66!! In fact, it seems like Laxman has discovered the most consistent patch of his career. Further, he seems to have aborted all questions about age being a factor, i.e. at least in test cricket. Steve Waugh, Shane Warne and Glen McGrath were the others who proved that age has nothing to do with test cricket and even Tendulkar seems to be championing the same cause.

3 Day test cricket..is Weekend cricket a solution?

Ian Chappell recently said that he wanted test cricket to be formatted in a style wherein only three days of cricket would be played, with nearly seven hrs of cricket every day. Yes, he did make sense in saying that the matches should be scheduled over the weekend, from Friday to Sunday, but does this assure of better viewership in a substantial manner?
I mean, the game is suffering more from boredom induced by dead pitches rather than lack of crowds in the stadium and I don't agree that stretching proceedings beyond 100 overs is an actual solution. Yes, day and night test matches do make sense and are needed but the more critical need is to ensure that test matches are played on result-oriented pitches with some breathing game in the cricketing calendar. Test matches are played on slow, turning Lankan wickets wherein the chances of the Lankan side winning are always high and matches are often scheduled on weekends, but the attendance is stadiums is not every average, why? simply because the pitches are such that the day's proceedings can be foretold to a large extent, taking out the surprise element from the game and as a result, the crowd's attention cannot be engaged. Weekend cricket just doesn't seem like a very effective solution Mr. Chapell.