Instead of a roaring crowd, cricketers are sometimes applauded by the chirping of their insect counterparts.
Attendance for the cricket games is decreasing, but a team of researchers in the Department of Economics may have moved the cricket community one step closer to changing that trend.
Economics professor Sudipta Sarangi and former Ph.D. students Bibhudutta Panda and Colin Cannonier co-authored an article that ran in “Business Line,” India’s most popular business daily, answering cricket purists’ doubts about a new format of the game.
The game’s new variant is called Twenty20 cricket, commonly abbreviated as T20.
Game duration is the only technical difference between T20 and other variants, such as One Day International (ODI) cricket and test cricket. T20 matches typically last two-and-a-half hours, whereas ODI matches take a whole day to complete and test matches can span five days.
Cricket is known as a tradition-laden sport, but decreasing match attendance and a failure to capitalize on television profits have prompted this most recent and drastic shift in the game.
Sarangi said the idea for this research project was born out of a lunchtime conversation about fast-paced cricket and the glamour of the Indian Premier League.
“We started asking, is there any difference between these two games? Because everyone seems to say that T20 is driven by batting performance,” Sarangi said. “It is so short that nothing else seems to matter. It is a very fast game driven by batting and entertainment. We said, ‘Maybe we can actually figure this out.'”
Through the statistical analysis of 471 ODI and T20 matches between 2008 and 2009, the research groups found the strategy required to win a T20 match is the same needed to win an ODI match.
This is the latest in a growing body of evidence supporting the need to adopt T20 as the norm.
Cannonier is a first-class cricketer himself. He has represented St. Kitts on its national team since he was 15 years old.
Though he hasn’t formally retired from cricket, he is now teaching at Belmont University and his opportunities to play are very limited. He hasn’t played professionally since 2008.
Cannonier has had experience playing all formats of cricket, mostly ODI and test matches.
He described his experience with longer formats as “taxing.” Matches took half the day on Saturdays and lasted from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays.
“My devotion initially was to the longer form,” Cannonier said.
As the shorter games of the Indian Premier League flourish with high attendance, American-style cheerleaders, colorful uniforms and franchises owned by Bollywood film stars, Cannonier said there is an opportunity for the game to expand to the United States.
“The chances of [cricket coming to the U.S.] are much greater with the advent of T20,” Cannonier said. “You can see the similarity in duration to baseball. Playing times are friendly for people to watch. People can devote leisure time to it.”
Sarangi said the audience-friendly viewing times T20 offers are crucial to the growth of the sport.
“If you are trying to get people to pick up a new sport, and you need them to miss work to watch it, it is not going to happen.”
Usman Cheema, civil engineering senior and captain of Metairie Cricket Club, said he sees T20 as a batsman’s showcase and the best development in cricket.
“It is pretty exciting because in T20 you have to change everything,” Cheema said. “In ODI you have to plan each inning. In T20 it is all about getting the bat on the ball.”
Metairie Cricket Club is one of five teams in the greater New Orleans area that play weekly, Cheema said.
Cheema said his team is comprised mostly of LSU and University of New Orleans students, and they play a makeshift format shortened to 30 or 25 overs, similar to an inning in baseball. He said the happy medium of their format takes less time than an ODI but still allows them to play a strategically complete match that lasts all afternoon.
When Cheema first came to the University in 2009, he said he and his friends would play informal matches on a makeshift field with a tennis ball. The games were reminiscent of the ones played in the streets of his native Pakistan, he said.
Sarangi said he hasn’t played anything more than an impromptu game of cricket since completing grade school, and his experience with T20 has been purely professional.
Sarangi said he’s not sure whether the switch is a good or bad step in the evolution of the game. He is not advocating the switch.
“What I can say is that it is happening. You cannot stop it,” Sarangi said. “I do not know if I will enjoy T20. I have not had the chance to watch a whole game of T20 with the halftime and the entertainment, so I do not know. But it seems that this is the way things are going.”
 
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Contact Paul Braun at [email protected]