There is a mixed feeling amongst the sporting community around the world. Some are feeling the blues while some are singing it. Till now, the most widely used sporting shade was only seen on sporting gears, but in the ever changing and innovative sporting world, Blue has now become the colour of field.

The hockey turf of the London Games has turned to this shade and so has the clay at the Madrid Open tennis tournament. Not many are impressed with these developments, but every pioneering effort is always faced with resistance and criticism. And mind you, neither of these surfaces is going to go back to their old shades any time soon.

Hockey, over a period of time moved from grass pitches to green turf. The green turf will soon become passé with blue turf making its grand entry during the London Games 2012. The pink run off areas will add to the dynamic look for the players, broadcasters and spectators equally.

For the record, Madrid’s clay was turned blue with a scientific process. The iron oxide and other metals were extracted from the red brick which turned it into a white brick. This white chunk of clay was then baked, crushed, filtered and at last it was dyed bright blue .The red synthetic athletics tracks turned blue for almost all marquee events since 2009, US Open in 2005 and Australia Open in 2008 also turned to this shade. Even when coloured pyjamas were introduced in cricket, the purists didn’t appreciate it. But today cricket is best viewed and appreciated in colours. Razzmatazz around the sport too is the master key to its existence in future. Therefore, to further enhance the experience, can’t the green outfields be replaced by blue turfs? At least in the leagues like Big Bash and IPL where packaging of the product is the priority, this change would be a revolutionary step.

If changing the outfield is too much of a hassle for the stadiums, the least they can think of doing, is turning the red coloured pitch to blue. Citing the examples of Madrid clay and London turf, neither of the ideas sounds difficult to execute. It may sound outrageous, but you need a certain Lalit or Kerry, someone with guts and gumption and instinctive feeling to carry out this in cricket.

For God sake if cricket can survive with orange and pink outfits (remember Kochi Tuskers), Ravindra Jadeja’s million dollar hair cut, Sachin and Zaheer’s straightened lengthy locks then a blue strip of 22 yards or an outfield of this shade can’t be worse than the above mentioned things.

Adolf Hitler had once said that ‘Anyone who sees and paints a sky green and fields blue ought to be sterilized’ but Hitler doesn’t exist anymore. So why not then?