Cricket has reached a stage where even committed watchers don’t know which teams are playing, when they are playing, who’s playing for whom, and, because they’re playing all the time, why they are playing at all. Why? Because cricket's in excess these days and that has robbed the charm of simple pleasures like following tournaments like the Challenger Trophy, to name a few, writes Rahul Bhattacharya in livemint.

From a premature nostalgist, let this column commence with a moan. The comfort of cricket has gone. This is a simple and profound loss I’ve been feeling lately. Here is October’s disorientation. The month began with the Champions Trophy (the fifty50, featuring countries). To be fair it contained some old-school elements such as moderate totals, Australia’s unbeaten run, and Pakistan’s senators accusing their team of match fixing, but on the whole it was a flat affair. It was terminable, unlike some of ICC’s other creations, and thus lauded.

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