The future cricket 2 (More new balls)

Originally, the game of cricket was conceived as a battle between the bat and the ball. Insufficient protection for batsmen and for pitches in the early days made it more in favour of the bowlers. So the administrators took over, bringing in covered pitches, the bouncer limitation, the leg side fielding restrictions, the front-foot no-ball rule and many more. Protective equipment for every conceivable part of the body (and elsewhere) made batsmen even more intrepid.

Today, the hand that holds the bat holds all the aces. Michael Holding’s plaintive cries echo that, Javagal Srinath’s baleful expressions confirmed that, Jason Gillespie’s test double hundred drove the point home, Daniel Vettori’s progress as an all-rounder tells its own story and every run that Monty Panesar makes is another nail in the bowler’s coffin.

It’s time to tilt the balance, a bit to begin with. A regulation that is very overtly bowler-centric is an urgent need of the hour, Twenty20 or no Twenty20, ICL or IPL, sponsors or boards. Here’s something that helps the fast bowlers. How about halving the time to the new ball in test matches? So the fielding team can opt for a new ball after 40 overs instead of the current 80?

The likes of Brett Lee and Dale Steyn would surely relish the prospect of coming back for a second spell midway through the second session of the first day to take a tilt at the middle order. Of course, if there is an expectation of reverse swing in the afternoon, the fielding team can delay taking the second new ball. And if a certain Muthiah Muralitharan is in your team, you’d probably pass that red cherry for a few more sessions.

Consider the effect on the batsmen. A Sourav Ganguly will have to face up to the new ball in test matches, something he normally does not prefer. A Jacques Kallis will settle down to the spinners and the seamers (and plot yet another anonymous hundred) and then will suddenly come up against the quicker ones in the midst of a somnolent (for himself, for the fielding team, for the spectators) afternoon session. Ah!

Here’s a more complex alternative. The second new ball becomes available after 60 overs, the third one after a further 40 and subsequent ones after every 30 overs. Sounds complicated? Well, we have power plays of different durations in one-day games, don’t we?

Part 1 – 50Fifty

Another MoM rant

When a team gets bowled out for 76 runs in 20 overs on the first day of a test match and goes on to lose by an innings and plenty in just three days, one would think that the opposition bowlers won the test for their team. And therefore one of them would have been named the man of the match. Dale Steyn returned match figures of 8 for 114, while Makhaya Ntini ended up with 6 for 62, including 5 top-order wickets (the most decisive performance, in my view). But AB de Villiers walked off with the man of the match for his unbeaten double century in the Ahmedabad test.

Sure a double hundred is a significant contribution, but look at the circumstances. When de Villiers strode in to the crease, his team was already 41 runs to the good, the man at the other end was Jacques Kallis, the pitch had lost its juice and the opposition were already looking forward to the next match. So how critical was de Villiers’ innings in the context of the game?

More often than not, bowlers win matches and batsmen save them. And when two out of the three innings read 494 for 7 declared and 328, the 76 stands out in stark contrast. And one of the people who engineered that devastation would’ve been the decisive force in the match? Well, it’s a batsman’s game, isn’t it?

One more piece of mine on individual awards here – And the award goes to . . .

The future cricket 1 (50Fifty)

From timeless tests to five-day tests. From 4-ball overs to 8-ball overs to 6-ball overs. From test cricket to one-day cricket to Twenty20. For a gentleman’s game, cricket has seen quite a bit of change over its 131 year international existence. So what transmogrifications can we expect in the future? Some idle speculation here, over the next few posts.

50Fifty

This is possibly the most logical extension one can imagine. The five-day test match version was producing too many dull draws. To artificially generate a positive result in the game, the one-day game was introduced. Then when the middle overs of one-dayers started getting boring, the game’s administrators just knocked them off and pop came Twenty20. What can Twenty20 lead to?

Well, quite a few celebrities from the business world and from tinsel town are involved in the Twenty20 game, thanks to the IPL and the ICL. What is the key characteristic of celebrities? Coming late for an event, of course. And the game cannot start without the celebrities making their grand appearances and their world-changing inaugural speeches, can it? Now that leaves us with even less time on our hands. So what do we do?

Introducing (drum roll and cheerleaders waving whatever they wave) 50Fifty, where each team gets to face 50 deliveries. Fifty is not divisible by six, you say? Come on, let’s not let such trivialities come in our way, shall we. Let’s just eliminate the concept of the over as a unit. Each team has to bowl 25 balls from one end of the wicket and 25 balls from the other end, that's it. The order is irrelevant, the number of balls at one stretch does not matter; but ends change when bowlers change. And each bowler can bowl a maximum of 15 deliveries in a game. Sounds crazy? Well, did you think of Twenty20 twenty years ago?

Beau who?

If there’s one aspect of the game the Englishmen have bettered the Aussies in over the last few years (no, seriously, there is something), it is left-arm spin. Monty Panesar may not have had a very successful Ashes series the last time over, but if you consider him and Phil Tufnell and Derek Underwood long before that, they surely have had better international success than the Aussies have had, notwithstanding the odd turns of Allan Border, Michael Bevan and Michael Clarke. And in the anodyne tradition of Ray Bright, Murray Bennett and Tom Hogan (Am I missing someone? That tells its own story, doesn't it?) comes Beau Casson, a left-arm finger spinner from that Mecca of spin bowling, Perth.

Beau has been named as the second spinner to that fitness fanatic, Stuart McGill, so it is fair to imagine he won’t be in the starting line-up for the first test at Kingston, Jamaica on May 22. But what are the odds that he may be in the fray for the second test? Well, McGill can injure his wrist again; or he can miss practice and upset the team management; or he can show dissent on the field for being given out 48 short of a well deserved maiden test half century. And hey presto, test player number 401, Beau Casson. The only thing about it is that the opponents are the West Indies, and so before Beau comes on to bowl, the tail will be in. A few days ago and one could have bet on Shivnarine Chanderpaul holding one end strong, but now he may well have gone off to attend an awards ceremony in one of the other islands.

Speaking of Chanderpaul, Australia have included their version of the West Indian (in terms of batting elegance), Simon Katich in the squad. Surely this is a serious message to Ricky Ponting, considering Peter Roebuck’s suggestions not so long ago that Katich should take over as captain of the Australian team? Considering Ponting has not been in the best of batting form of late, this added pressure will surely be a test to his character and leadership skills. Oh, what an exciting series this is going to be!

Absolem, Absolem!

A little-known man called Alfred Absolem playing for a little-known team called the Hyderabad Heroes against another little-known team called the Ahmedabad Rockets in a little-known (well. . .) tournament called the Indian Cricket League has picked up a scarcely credible seven wickets in a Twenty20 game. After starting off with two wickets in his first over, Absolem underwent the mortification of a wicketless over, before picking two more in his next, rounding off with three wickets in his last over to finish with 7 for 15 off four overs. Local players aside, Absolem’s wickets included Wavell Hinds, Murray Goodwin, Damien Martyn and Heath Streak. A pity then, that all these worthies are long retired and the matches are part of a rebel tournament, so Absolem is unlikely to be in contention for a slot in the national team. But 7 for 15, he’ll take that I reckon. Here’s the match card.

Vaughan on Dunedin

“I know a lot will be said and written about our defeat to New Zealand at Seddon Park over the weekend. Different opinions are being offered for our defeat, but as the man at the helm, only Michael knows the real reasons.

“Yes, our bowling was one of the reasons for our defeat. But not in the way the media thinks. Yes, Harmy didn’t quite fire. But don’t tell me you expected it. We don’t come into a game thinking Harmy’s going to win it for us. It’s a team game, isn’t it, so we expect the ten others to cover for Harmy. To be honest, Harmy exceeded our (and his own, I think) wildest expectations: he bowled just the one wide in the entire game, didn’t he. Remember his first test in the Southern hemisphere last season? Our bowling disappointment has really been Ryan. The test would have meandered into a draw if Ryan had just followed the script: the hat-trick hastened the game and created a result. Monty’s three wickets didn’t help either. It was a dead wicket otherwise.

“Some insightful statisticians might point out that we played 228.1 overs in the test to score 458 runs, at a rate of just over two runs per over, and that if we had scored just one run more per over, we would have won comfortably. Well, it’s all well for critics to say that, but we have a responsibility to the test game. If we start treating test matches like one-dayers and play our strokes, we’d become responsible for killing the test game. No, Michael can’t take that to his grave. And don’t forget, it was a dead wicket – for batsmen as well. Sure, New Zealand scored at more than three runs per over in both their innings, I think Twenty20 is getting to them.

“I think we need to calibrate the media’s expectation with the English cricket team. Michael won the Ashes for them in 2005, in what is England’s greatest sporting achievement forever. But look at what England has achieved after that in the test arena. Thanks to Darrell and those inconsistent Pakistanis, England has managed to win against them. But they lost to Australia (lost? more like lambasted) away, to India at home, to Sri Lanka away. And I’m sure I’m forgetting some other lost series. With all that background, you expect us to win now? Come on, you might as well ask Harbhajan to keep quiet. Or Harmy to win matches, come to that.

“As with most disasters, there are some positives we can take out of the game. Vaughan scored a fifty in the first innings, so no one can say he’s in the team only because of his captaincy. Colly’s second innings stonewall shows that just because he is England’s one-day captain doesn’t mean he cannot defend. Monty’s heroic effort with the bat in the second innings means we have a spinning all-rounder for the first time after Ashley. And most importantly, considering where England is now, there is only one way ahead.”

(Michael Vaughan didn’t give this interview to the media after the Dunedin disaster as he was busy discussing James Whitaker’s travel plans.)

The pilgrimage

Despite at least half-a-dozen visits to London over the years, the Lord’s Cricket Ground has always proved elusive. Finally, the visit happened over the weekend, on Saturday, 1^st March 2008.

You step out of the tube at St. John’s Wood, and a bright sign greets you at the exit gate: Lord’s Cricket Ground 400 yards. Not a long distance, you think and start hitting the road, ignoring the Beatles’ coffee shop peeking at you from the corner. The first entrance you encounter, the North Gate, is, sure enough, just about 400 yards away. Except that this is England and we are dealing with the MCC, aren’t we, so this is not the entrance that lets you in; you’ve got to walk a further 200 yards or so, before you reach the real portal, the Grace Gate.

So I finally arrive at the Grace Gate at 10.25 am, all ready to be buried in history, tradition and the good doctor’s beard. Except that the ground tours start at 10 am and at 12 noon – too early for the first and too late for the next. After wandering around outside the ground for another hour (wondering about the people living in the vicinity and whether it is good or bad to live around the ground), I come back 11.30 am and start off by making my contribution to the running of the game - £12.

There’s still about 30 minutes to go, so you loiter around the museum. Considering Lord’s claims to be the home of cricket (as the signs outside modestly proclaim), it’s interesting that there are very few articles of interest in the museum outside of England (and, of course, the Ashes). Oh yes, there is a Brian Lara exhibition, on temporarily for Lara’s charity. One of the more interesting exhibits is a bat signed by Sachin Tendulkar with the following inscription.

The whole world knows Brian Lara as a cricket but I am fortunate to know you as both friend and cricketer.

Oh well, I suppose it’s a milder comparison than the monkeys and weeds that seem to be in vogue nowadays.

The tour starts with the long room, which is er, rather long at 90 feet. It feels a bit like a chapel – but surely that’s just the guide’s tone that makes it so. On match day, you can imagine members being too busy with their wine and other assorted liquors to be thinking of much else, oh a bit of the game perhaps, dear chap.

Then we move on to the dressing rooms, the home team’s (England, MCC, Middlesex) and the visitors’. It’s a nice feeling to be in the dressing room balcony, where Sourav Ganguly took his shirt off not too long ago (he was apparently chastised for breaking the dress code). And the walk from the dressing room – down the stairs, past the members and their wine glasses and through the wicket gate – no wonder debutants and first-timers at Lord’s tend to be nervous. But apart that, this is a ground, not a stadium, as the guide emphasises. It’s just a game, not a performance. Indeed.

The honours boards in the dressing rooms lend themselves to some genuinely useless trivia questions. As reward for still reading this post, here’s one for you: Who is the only player to figure in the batting (there’s a clue for you) honours boards in both dressing rooms? (Write in if you know the answer, free publicity guaranteed.) It’s also interesting to note the names that don’t figure on the honours boards – Sunil Gavaskar, Ricky Ponting, Sachin Tendulkar among the batsmen; Imran Khan, Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan among the bowlers, to name just a handful.

The committee room where all the board members meet looks like nothing more than a board room of a corporate organisation. The view from here into the ground seems to be blighted by the sight-screen, except that the sight-screen at Lord’s is a nifty thing – the material is translucent (bordering on the transparent) from the inside and opaque from the outside. Should’ve been canvas or cloth, shouldn’t it, with all the tradition and stuff.

Oh yes, no photography inside the long room or in the dressing rooms. Too sacred or too secret? Just so our cameras don’t go to waste, we go to one of the stands (opposite Father Time, just in case you’re interested), from where we keep going click-click. A sunny day with blue skies affords some splendid scenery – write in for pictures, and I’ll let you have them for a pip.

The Media Centre at Lord’s looks a bit like a mobile phone in a pyramid, but it certainly is swank, well-equipped and roomy. And it affords a fantastic view into the ground. It is from here that one gets a good sense of the famous Lord’s slope – 8 feet 6 inches from one side of the ground to the other. (Considering how well Glenn McGrath exploited it, may be it should now be called the Pigeon’s Beak?)

The Lord’s Shop that rounds off the tour is, not to put too fine a point on it, disappointing, especially the book section. Considering Mike Brearley is the MCC president now, surely The Art of Captaincy should be available? And some of the other classics? The only one I find (and pick up) is A Majestic Innings, a compilation of articles by CLR James.

Membership at about £400 a year does not seem quite too forbidding for Lord’s, except that by the time you get through the waiting list (about 18 years), England may have stopped playing the game.