Friday, February 15, 2002 I've often wondered why one-day cricket so appeals to the Asian psyche. The favoured hypothesis is that we have a short attention span, and our minds wander once the scoreboard clicks past the 50th over. But this is not a peculiarly Asian phenomenon, and if you have ever been to South Asia you will know that impatience is not rewarded. You might argue that it is not that Asians are patient but that they have to resign themselves to a snail-paced life, an inevitable consequence of stifling bureaucracy and overpopulation. Either way, we are used to waiting around for a result.

But there is an alternative hypothesis that I prefer, partly because it is my own, and partly because I think it is true. A clue lies in the Wisden 100. Now, league tables are good and bad. Good because they allow an instant comparison — of cricketing greatness in this case, of the quality of schools and hospitals in others. Debate gushes from them.

They are bad because they have to be taken with a pinch of salt. League tables depend inevitably on the variables that are measured and on how they are set. Throw in the biases, conscious and unconscious, of those devising them and, as with most statistics, there are lies, damned lies but few truths. There was plenty of debate and suspicion when Sachin Tendulkar and Javed Miandad failed to make it into the Wisden 100 for Test batting. But Wisden's ratings do attempt to measure all the relevant variables and are by far the best comparison we have, although more explanation would be welcome.

So how does this help us understand Asia's passion for one-day cricket? Wisden's one-day tables have a higher proportion of Asian players than the Test tables. Inevitable, you might say, because Asian teams have not been playing Test cricket as long as England, Australia, South Africa, or West Indies. Such a crude comparison does not answer our question but it does point to it. Only point to it because of the performances that make it on to the Test top 100s, few date back to before India and Pakistan competed.

But that is also the crux of the issue. There are players on the Test tables that played in an era when cricket was an exclusive club, enjoyed by colonisers, and Asians merely looked on as the toffs in white wiggled their willow and played with their balls. You see the problem with Test cricket is that even though Asians do value it as the higher form of the game, we were not in on it from the start. And that makes a difference. There is a whole history that we were not part of. Legends were made and dreams were broken while we gawped in bewilderment.

By the time one-day cricket was established so were India and Pakistan. Even Sri Lanka were in on the fun. That is why Viv's jaw-dropping innings at Old Trafford in 1984 means more to the Asian mind than Bradman's chart-topping Test performance. We can judge our own heroes by him. But who do we compare Bradman with? This is not to diminish the Don or to say that out of sight is out of mind. But history is always more interesting if it is your history as well. One-day cricket fits the bill.

Kamran Abbasi, born in Lahore, brought up in Rotherham, is assistant editor of the British Medical Journal. His Asian View appears on Wisden.com every Friday.

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