Recently, India’s senior spinner, Ravichandran Ashwin tweeted that the ODI World Cup should be started a bit earlier.
This year’s 50-over World Cup is going to be held in India and there’s going to be dew.
Many former and current cricketers have come in the support of Ashwin’s comment.
India skipper, Rohit Sharma, and batting coach Paras Mhambrey have also agreed with Ashwin on this count.
Even former India cricketer, Aakash Chopra has given his support to Ashwin.
However, the only roadblock is the revenue system of the broadcasters. Chopra says the broadcasters will never agree to hold matches early.
Already the TRPs of ODI matches are low in the country and if such a condition is placed, it will tank the TRPs even further.
Chopra says that whatever Ashwin says always makes sense because he weighs every situation in his head before speaking.
Principally, in theory, it makes a lot of sense. If Ashwin talks, there will be sense. I don’t think he would be saying anything without consideration. If he has said it, it carries weight, and it is a fact that dew comes later.
Adding further, he says,
Even if the dew doesn’t come, assuming you have sprayed a lot, a slight film is formed, the ball becomes a little damp and the pitch becomes favourable for batting and it becomes slightly skewed in favor of the team that’s batting second.
Chopra cites various reasons why ODI World Cup matches cannot be held early
On the other hand, Chopra has also given some disadvantages of why the 50-over matches cannot be held early.
He (Ashwin) said this, and Rohit Sharma was in total agreement but everyone said that it is not in their hands. Why is it not in their hands? This is going to be a difficult World Cup in any case from the broadcaster’s point of view because the ODI TRPs do not skyrocket.
Highlighting further the broadcasting problem, Chopra says,
The weekday games, in particular- a sizeable match gets over when the kids are in school and the adults are mostly in the office. The only thing that you bank on is that if the match starts at 1:30, people might tune in around 7:00 as they want to watch Kohli play. If the match starts at 11:30, the match will be over by the time people reach home. I don’t think that’s going to fly with the broadcasters. Broadcasters will say they will have a huge loss.
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