Tennis was once a sport played with a wooden racquet on grass court with men in trousers and on natural grass courts. Today’s game is played with graphite racquets with professional athletes in sweat absorbing T shirts and on astro turf. Comparitively, cricket has stayed the test of time better, with introduction of pyjama cricket being a limited aberration. However, trust the Aussies to do better.

This article appearing on the Telegraph, discusses how the Aussies are working on new technologies on the bat, to increase the dimensions of the sweet spot and to reduce shock and vibration arising out of the shot. As per this article, the handle is equipped with “electro-mechanical sensors and a vibration-absorbing synthetic material which converts shockwaves into heat and dampens vibration”. The article further goes on to state that the new bat will not contravene any of the existing ICCs laws unlike Ponting’s graphite bat. Recently, the Aussie Vice-Captain, Adam Gilchrist was also in the news for using a squash ball in his glove during the course of his mammoth 149 against Sri Lanka in the ICC World Cup finals. Even fielding has not been spared.

However, the point of this article is not to discuss these innovations and their rights and wrongs but to forewarn the Indian authorities that the Aussies and their ilk are not content with only winning all there is in Cricket but are professional enough to look beyond competition and change the way the sport is played. Not that I agree with it, but Cricket cannot afford to bury its head for long and to compete with other modern sports will be forced to innovate. So when the time comes for change and like football we must not be caught with our shoes off, literally. This also shows how much the Aussies and the Sri Lankans (Jayasuriya and Sangakkara also used the graphite bats), think ahead of their times and hence no wonder are at the top of the sport. Compare this with India, where we still keep talking about change, while Indian juniors still rough it out on mud flats across the country.

With the way things have been going on, unless we change our mindset rapidly and begin thinking about the game rather than going through the motions, we would soon see Cricket join the likes of hockey and myriad other sports which live more on borrowed glory from the past than bask in the expectancy of a glorious future.

Till then, enjoy…