What an emphatic win failed to do, a thrilling draw appears to have done.
The just concluded India-West Indies Test match at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium, which ended in a draw with both sides scoring the same number of runs, is likely to revive interest in the five-day format of the game.
"What a game. I'm absolutely sure it will bring back interest in this format of the game. It will be visible when India tours Australia next month,” Sourav Ganguly, former captain of Indian cricket team, told Business Standard.
While a draw seemed to be the most likely result when the day began, Indian spinners – Pragyan Ojha and Ravichandran Ashwin – turned the game in the home team's favour bowling out West Indies for 134 runs.
India needed 243 runs from 64 overs to win the game but ended the day scoring 242 runs for loss of nine wickets when Ashwin was run out in the last delivery of the game. This is only the second time a Test match has been drawn with scores level with one side chasing for a win. Last time it was England, which fell short of beating Zimbabwe in a similar fashion.
“Fantastic cricket was played on Saturday. With too much cricket now being played in the continent, the viewership has been affected. But matches like this will get the excitement back,” cricket expert Ayaz Memon said.
Fans also echoed a similar view. “It was a fantastic game. It will surely revive interest in Test cricket,” Gunit Chadha, chief executive of Deutsche Bank in India and an ardent follower of the game, said.
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Despite the convincing win in the first two Tests of the series, an overkill of cricket over the last few months has put television viewership and advertisement rates on a sticky wicket with the ad rates almost falling by 35-40 per cent.
The interest in Test matches has been waning ever since the introduction of T20 cricket. India's Test series with England earlier this year clocked a rating of 0.98-1.15, which advertisers said was not encouraging.
Neo Cricket, the official broadcaster of the on-going India-West Indies series, had given a 40-60 per cent discount on its initial asking rate of Rs 4.5 lakh for a 10 second ad spot, said media buyers.
For the Test series, Neo had tied up with Tata DoCoMo, Nescafe, Airtel Digital TV, Nokia and Novartis. It has seven sponsors on board for the One Day International series between India and West Indies beginning later this month.
But the broadcaster now expects the result will keep the ad rates steady for upcoming Test matches.
“It was a brilliant watch. We expect phenomenal rating for this game. It surely brought entertainment back to Test cricket,” Prasanna Krishnan, chief operating officer of Neo Sports, said.