Atul Satish Wassan is a former Indian cricketer. He has become a cricket commentator after retirement and is a renowned cricket expert. He played 4 Tests and 9 ODIs for India at the highest level. However, injuries in his life forced him to cut short his cricket career and from thereon he started focussing towards television industry, hosting many cricket related shows.
We spoke to him exclusively at a sports event held in Delhi recently, below are the excerpts
Q. Your reaction on India- South Africa Series, where India registered a charismatic win?
A. India should have won. India is a better team inspite of being a second string attack at home. When India plays, you know, obviously they are force to reckon with. But I must compliment the South African team. They won the first game. Put pressure on India, but I didn’t rate them very much, but to be honest I am a 20-20 guy.
I think so that nobody is bothered to watch the full overs. According to me ODI’s need to inculcate some amendments. Everybody is saying that it should change from 50 overs to 40 overs, otherwise it’s becoming irrelevant by the minute. Now, there is World Cup approaching. I hope they can just come out with the law that only 40 overs will remain. 50 over has become too long and there’s a set pattern to it which is making the format very boring.
Q. In the India -South Africa series which concluded recently, South Africa totally outplayed. Do you agree?
A. No, they did not totally outplay. I think that the conditions were such that if you bat first and if you don’t get over 250-270 runs you’ve got no chance because these days in ODI it’s observed that 300 runs have become the power. So I don’t actually watch most of it because these days to watch up 50 over game one needs a lot of patience either I can watch 20 overs and then move on or I can watch test matches. So, honestly I don’t pay much attention to ODIs.
Q. Your expert comments on the team building for the World Cup?
A. I think our preparations are the best. This is the best team we’ve got. So, T20 should not be over analyzed too much and I think anything can happen. So we should not get too disappointed if we don’t win it because of the buildup, it’s an irony that aftermath brickbats happen so much in India and the media hypes it so much. It’s good that we have great confidence in our team but it’s not easy to go and win the cup, that’s not the case. We can lose also, we should be mentally ready for both, also we have to stop this blame game post matches.
Q. What you have to say about the other sports especially wrestling and other athletes of India who performed outstandingly in CWG 2022. Isn’t it winning like a World Cup for India?
A. This the question I was waiting for, you know, these are the real heroes. They are my heroes and they won medals in CWG and Olympics and even World Championships. Actually, I want to meet most of them. I follow them closely and admire them a lot. It’s certainly a new dawn in Indian sports.