A cricket fan in the city has scored over Sachin Tendulkar. But Sachin won't mind at all, because it's all for making the T20 version of cricket more popular. Both of them have come up with an idea to keep spectator interest in the shorter version of the game alive for a longer time. The fan came up with it earlier. Sachin had on September 4 suggested that T20 be made a two-innings game to jack up its popularity. On September 1, Kaustubh Savarkar, a cricket fan from Pune, had submitted a detailed proposal on almost the same lines to the International Cricket Council (ICC). Savarkar, who is finance manager with an MNC, had written to the ICC on September 1 and had got a reply on September 2 saying the proposal would be forwarded to the ICC operational committee. Savarkar, who has played cricket for his college team in Nanded, had in fact got the brainwave in February. He had prepared a detailed proposal and sent it to BCCI in March. "I got a reply but the officials told me to forward it through the local cricket association. I forwarded it to the Maharashtra Cricket Association. A senior BCCI official suggested me to send it to ICC instead. I sent it to the ICC on September 1 through e-mail and got reply that my proposal would be forwarded to the operational committee of the ICC and they would get back if required," Savarkar told Newsline. Savarkar's proposal is based on the idea of giving a "second chance" to the teams, while keeping the audience interest high. He has named the proposed format 2T20. "The logic is simple. Both teams will play 20 overs each in the two innings and whoever scores higher wins. This will be a mix of test, one-day and T20 formats," says Savarkar who has even made a provision of follow-on in this format if the team batting second in the first innings is not able to score more than 80 per cent runs of the first team. Savarkar said spectators would wait to see the complete match since the second innings holds the promise of a swing in fortune of the teams and that too the same day. "In one-day matches, sometimes audiences can predict the result after the first team bats or even after the toss. That won't be the case here," he said. Savarkar has also appealed to the ICC to have a minimum performance criteria and policy for the cricketers. He said he had been trying to contact Sachin to send the proposal to him too. "I have prepared the proposal purely as a fan and will be most happy to send it to Sachin as he has suggested the same thing," he added. Other tips for T20* If rain interrupts, the umpire will decide on the number of overs that will be equally divided between the teams.* Strategic time-outs, a maximum 2 per inning will be allowed* There will be a limit of 90 minutes per innings and any team failing to adhere to it will be penalised by reducing their batting overs in the next innings, but there will be no change in runs scored by the other team* In case of bad light, if only one inning is played, then the match will be abandoned. But for the match to yield result at least one innings per team needs to be completed.
SiddharthKelkar
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