Onus on administrators to find ideal balance between bat and ball

If these features are either missing or nearly non-existent, then it’s a struggle to envisage the game as truly being a form of cricket

Australia finally won the major trophy that has eluded its grasp for more than a decade—the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.

They clinched the trophy by clouting deliveries to and over the boundary, whilst producing a mixture of bowling that combined just enough wicket-taking with the right amount of containment. They also had the good fortune to win the toss when it really mattered in a tournament where the major matches too often became a win the coin flip, win the match event.

This was one of the major flaws in a tournament that achieved quite a lot of success.

There’s an appeal for a worldwide T20 tournament featuring contests between nations. In addition, there’s a widespread clamour for the increasingly popular franchise cricket that has experienced enormous success. However, there also needs to be a wide-reaching survey into the changes required to improve the T20 format. To make it even more popular than it is, tournaments have to include a way to ensure the game doesn’t become a win the toss, win the match event.

There seems to be two widely diverging views on T20 cricket. There is the long-term cricket fan’s fear that the game will become an all-powerful event that favours muscle-bound six-hitting batsmen and is too often won by the chasing team. Then there is the opinion of the not so discerning fan who is unworried by the seeming lack of a contest between bat and ball and can’t get enough of the mammoth six-hitting.

Action must be engaging

Not surprisingly, at my age I prefer the game to remain a contest and if it quickly becomes a batting exhibition I lose interest very quickly. I’m of the view that fans should be engaged by the contest between bat and ball; enjoy the tactical battles—both team and individual—and require a certain amount of artistry in the batting.

If these features are either missing or nearly non-existent, then it’s a struggle to envisage the game as truly being a form of cricket.

Then, there is the balance between sport and entertainment. In my opinion, the balance in T20 cricket needs to be somewhere in the vicinity of 60-40; sport to entertainment. At the moment it’s unbalanced and too much in favour of pure entertainment.

The administrators need to find both the ideal balance between bat and ball and educate fans on cricket’s values. It is fine when middled deliveries finish up in the stands, but a bowler should be extremely angry if a blatant mishit still clears the ropes. This problem can be addressed on larger Australian grounds but I’m not sure what ‘genius’ produced the ludicrous mixture of better bats and smaller boundaries. 

This combination is reducing leather flingers to the status of virtual bowling machines. It is a serious slight on good bowlers and needs to be rectified immediately.
When bowlers are induced by the regulations to deliberately aim balls wide of the stumps to avoid major scoring opportunities, it debases the game. Bowlers should have the choice to aim the ball at the stumps as this is by far the best way to keep batsmen under pressure. Aiming the ball off the stumps and mainly relying on a batsman’s blunder to be dismissed, reduces the contest drastically and therefore the spectacle.

Cricket is a game to be enjoyed. Fielding is a worthwhile occupation that is best enjoyed when it’s combined with the opportunity to have a decent hit.

T20 is different to Tests, ODI

When I watch sports like baseball, golf and tennis played in their shorter forms, I’m heartened by the fact that the game still remains basically the same. The sport witnessed in the T20 format is a distant variety of Test cricket and not always easily associated with the 50 over game.

Cricket needs to entertain, but it must also maintain a strong association with its roots. The administrators need to remember this crucial point when they plan for the game’s future.

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