Across Time: Ravichandran Ashwin and Babar Azam
Fri, Jan 20, '17
“It is amazing how quickly Ashwin has become the fastest to reach 200 Test wickets, he is going to break many records,” said my dad.
“Not fastest, second fastest,” I corrected him.
“You are talking about people like (Clarrie) Grimmett. Son, cricket has changed a lot from back then,” he said.
I couldn’t argue.
He recalls watching a Test match in Karachi where 95 runs were scored in a full day’s play. He reminisces the time when during Test matches players could casually interact with friends, family and even with privileged fans.
He says, “Asif Iqbal would sit next to us and chit chat, with his pads on, waiting for his turn to bat”.
He remembers Hanif Mohammad riding a bicycle to the National Stadium on the morning of a Test match in Karachi.
The Mohammad brothers often got their lunch from home, as their mother packed tiffin for them, he says.
As money poured into cricket, its social fabric changed too.
Laws, regulations, bat technology, pitches, quality of oppositions and many other components that have fundamentally altered the sport are in a constant state of evolution.
Fielding restrictions and power play arrangements change so fast that even avid cricket followers have to stay up to speed to keep pace with frequent modifications.
It can sometimes take an extra second to recall how many fielders are allowed outside the circle in the last ten overs of an ODI.
In such a dynamic environment, how accurate can it be to compare players from different eras?
