Wednesday 9 June 2010

What I say today...

That 50-over cricket is dead is beyond debate. Sure, it's still limping around, haranguing passers-by with beery breath and shouting about its World Cup next year, but it has been filleted by T20, which - it has long been obvious - is just 50 over cricket with the boring bits removed. It's a format out of time.

But T20 has its own inherent problems, the first being the speed at which players have learned how to play it: it will mature as a form far more quickly than 50 over cricket did. Once it has, its only promise for the future is of greater excess - faster bowlers, bigger hitters. It lacks a dimension beyond that. Then there is its commercial problem: it offers less ad breaks.

The solution has been pretty obvious for some time*. Find a way of extending the game, add in a tactical element and make sure that the crowd get plenty of star-power for their money. In other words, a 40-over game made up of two 20-over innings per side. If Giles Clarke and the ECB were as clever as they think, they would have introduced it by now [instead they have entered a war with Lalit Modi which neither will win]. Cricket Australia are about to beat them to it. If they do, expect next year's 40 over comp to follow suit.

* I blogged on it before this, but can't find where.

10 comments:

Mark said...

So how soon until we get a test match which consists of alternate 20 over innings for five days....

David Barry said...

The proposed format isn't two innings each of 20 overs though - it's one innings each of 40 overs, but the game is split into quarters.

I think that splitting into quarters makes for a small improvement (and it probably reduces the effect of the toss a little bit), but fundamentally it's just a 40-over game, with batsmen pacing themselves accordingly. It's tinkering at the edges, it might have a novelty value for a while, but it's a temporary fix for a form of the game that will hopefully die out soon.

CA's main motivation is to bring it to ODI's so that in home games, there are almost always Australians batting in the evening session. Apparently we the fans would prefer always seeing our middle order after getting home from work, and are willing to sacrifice not seeing our openers....

Russ said...

There is a lot to be said for quarters. I think it would work just as well in a T20 - 10 over quarters. And has the advantage that you don't need to rely on a D/L calculation (just use the half-way result).

Other advantages:
- It evens out the conditions, since both teams will bat/bowl at night.
- It brings a tactical element to the third innings, since the team trailing might need to attack more.
- It makes a really short game unlikely, since you'll generally get at least a third quarter. Actually, it could make for an interesting bonus point scenario, whereby if a team wins without using the 4th innings they have won "by an innings", with a follow-on if the team batting first leads by more than 50.

On tactics generally. I've said this before, but the same-ness of tactics in T20 are the product of the restrictions carried over from the 50 over game. The power-play, for example, requires teams to attack in the first 6. Whereas, without it, some teams would, some might try and consolidate early. Bowling restrictions too, detract from individual match-ups. Both shortened versions of the game would be much improved by a simplification of the rules.

But, too, what DB said. 40/50 overs, same difference, both deserve to die out.

David Barry said...

And has the advantage that you don't need to rely on a D/L calculation (just use the half-way result).

Are you saying that 9/100 beats 0/99 if that's where the teams are after 20 overs each?

Russ said...

DB, sure, why not? (and do you really think a team could make 9/100 in 10 overs?) If both teams were certain it was going to rain they'd play the first half as a 10 over a-side game, just in case. If a team has risked it all to get ahead after 10 overs and it doesn't rain, then they lose out. Tactics, risk. It isn't as if both sides wouldn't be aware of what was at stake.

David Barry said...

DB, sure, why not?
Because it would be a seriously perverse result that would get the whole cricketing world justifiably pining for the days of Duckworth-Lewis. What if it's one of those sudden Brisbane thunderstorms that only the team batting second has certainty of? This sort of risk element would be far more detrimental to the game than DL is.

It wouldn't be quite so bad in T20, but for 40-over cricket, it'd only take one such gross injustice for the system to be replaced.

The Old Batsman said...

Ah okay, I must have skimmed the quarters bit. I favour the two innings though - don't you think it gives more of an extra dimension to the game - plus the big names could bat twice, offering the crowd more value...

David Barry said...

I think I'd have to see a two-20-over-innings game before judging it. I'd probably enjoy it, but for an IPL-type league I think I'd prefer a three-hour game that I can watch after work.

I would actually like to see it trialled at domestic level, though, because there are two big factors driving domestic T20 crowds:
- lots of action
- done in three hours

Having the first factor but not the second would let us see which is more important for bringing the crowds in.

Anonymous said...

You are right about the excess, but one way of getting more 'big hits' in is to bring the boundaries in so far that anyone, even Michael Clarke, can hit sixes at will.

I give you New Road with its 60 yard boundaries.

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