THE future of 50-over one-day internationals is in serious trouble. Today's cricketers do not want to play this format of the game any more. Already the England and South African cricket boards have deleted this form of cricket from their domestic fixturs. Cricket Australia has one more year left with its Ford sponsorship of the domestic 50-50 competition, and who knows what will happen after that?
One-day internationals need to get sexy again. The fans are bored with them, particularly between overs 15 to 40. Unless we do something more drastic to improve this game, there will only be Test and Twenty20 cricket left.
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| England's Matt Prior attempts to sweep the ball watched by Australia's Tim Paine (C) and Michael Clarke (R) during the first Natwest Series one day cricket international match at the Oval, London September 4, 2009. REUTERS/Philip Brown (BRITAIN SPORT CRICKET) |
Here a two different formats that we could look at.
Case 1
Change the game from 50 to 40 overs per innings. I played this form of the game and loved it. I have always thought that the 50-over format was 10 overs too long. One major change: there would be four quarters to this match. Two white balls per innings. That means one new ball at each end from the start of each innings.
Team A bats first. When 20 overs are completed (Team A is, say, 3-90), then Team B would start its innings and bat for 20 overs (Team B, say, 2-79 after 20 overs).
Then Team A would re-commence its innings and bat out its final 20 overs, with Team B then attempting to chase down the score. Thus, the four-quarters concept.
By playing the game this way it would stop any advantage of the toss with a dicey pitch or average weather conditions. Fans or viewers turning up late would at least see both teams bat and bowl.
Bowlers get eight overs each and the usual fielding restrictions are in place for the first 15 overs.
Case 2 (My favourite)
Play Test-Twenty20 cricket. That is, both teams would have two innings. Each innings is 20 overs long and compulsory closure is enforced.
This is a better game than the original Twenty20 format as both teams have a second chance if they play poorly in the first innings.
A good game of Twenty20 relies heavily on the team batting first to make a good score. If they don't, then the game can be a bore. The game would take the same amount of time to play as the original ODIs.
This format would also allow the fans to watch players like Ricky Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar bat twice in one day. In day-night ODIs, Cricket Australia loses a lot of revenue when fans don't turn up after work if Australia bats first. People prefer to watch the batsmen than the bowlers. In this Test-Twenty20 format they can turn up after work and watch both teams bat and bowl in the second innings.
Twenty20 allows more opportunities for the cricketing ''minnows'' to beat the Test-playing countries, and I don't think this is good for the game.
Change a 6 to an 8!
Anyone can hit a four. Anyone. But to hit a ball in the air and carry a 70-metre boundary takes technique, timing and strength. Don Bradman realised the risk was not worth it to go for a six - that's why he hit the ball along the ground and only hit six sixes in his Test career. To risk your wicket for an extra two runs was simply not worth it. So make it worth it. I think an eight is fair and reasonable.
Overthrows
I simply cannot understand why a fielding team is penalised when a fielder hits the stumps with a throw and the batsmen are allowed to take overthrows. No overthrows are allowed if the fielder hits the stumps with a throw. This will make the fielding team throw the ball more at the stumps and they won't be penalised for being accurate.
Also, no overthrows for a throw deflecting off a batsman or umpire. Batsmen are taught to get in between the fielder and the stumps. You never see a batsman given out obstructing the field when he intentionally gets in the way of the ball. Batsmen normally won't run if a throw is deflected off them. They would if they needed three runs to win a game. Cricketers are so inconsistent when the pressure is on and the law should be changed.
Three umpires
I think it's time that we had three umpires on the ground in international cricket. One umpire would stand at the bowler's end, one at square leg and the other umpire side-on at the bowler's end watching for no-balls. This would allow the umpire at the bowler's end to concentrate on the speed and line of the delivery and not worry about the bowler's feet. This will give the umpires that spilt second of time they crave for to make better decisions. Umpires would also rotate every innings.
The next ODI World Cup will be the last if countries are no longer playing the 50-50 game domestically. Cricket in general can survive with three forms of the game.
The International Cricket Council needs to make some radical changes soon to our beloved ODIs, or Twenty20 will kill off the original golden goose of cricket.
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