London, July 20: All sports evolve with time. Should one be embarrassed by changing a particular sport in order to suit the need of the hour or should one retain the same character even though the entire game has changed?

Rugby football is an example where the game has been modified and given another name to meet the changing requirements. A sport resembling rugby was played around the 5th century BC by the Greek.

It evolved and took the name Criapan in Wales. The Irish called it caid and had their own rules.

The Cornish actually go back to the bronze age where they played ‘hurling to goal’.

The world today accepts two major variants of the original ‘hurling to goal’. Whilst the rest of the world plays rugby trying its best to retain the purity of the game and play it with the least of protection, the Americans chose to deviate from the traditional and establish a variant called American football where the players are padded up.

Nobody was embarrassed to give the different versions different names and create different rules for each version.

The same needs to be done with cricket. Nobody can deny that, cricket over the past 25 years, has become a completely different form of the original sport. With the inception of the helmet, the visor, the chest pad, the larger thigh pads, better leg guards, superior gloves and incredibly powerful bats the game has evolved.The game has become more batsman-friendly and laws have been changed to equate the ever widening gap between ball and bat. Under such circumstances when comparisons are made between the players who played before and after the ‘protection-era’ it burns me.

Yet as long as you have a game and as long as the name of the game remains the same, comparisons will be made in order to differentiate between the average, good, great and greatest. Which brings me to the debate — who is better Sachin Tendulakr or Sunil Gavaskar?

Ask any cricketer to have played in the 1970s and earlier and they will categorically tell you that Sunil is miles ahead.

They say this is because Gavaskar has faced the best of the deadliest fast bowlers in the world, at most times with barely any protection; whilst Tendulkar has not faced a single delivery above 90-plus mph without a helmet. On the other hand ask players who have played with Tendulkar and they will tell you that Sachin is the greatest player ever. It is not his fault that the helmet arrived.

One cannot and therefore should not compare between the two different eras of the sport.

I say the name cricket should remain up till 1980 — after that change cricket to ‘wickets’. Then there will be no confusion. Sunil Gavaskar remains a great cricketer and Sachin Tendulkar can then be called the greatest ‘wicketer’ ever born.