Now it's Harsha Bhogle's turn
First, Steve Waugh mentioned that he'd like to see Twenty20 be played using lesser number of players, something that I'd written about a year and a half ago.
I think one option would be to have Twenty-20 games with 11 players but only six are allowed to bat, not all eleven. Allow a maximum of six overs per bowler, not five. This means there could be around two front-line bowlers and the rest of the eight overs could be shared by the part-timers. This reduces the impact of the batting team going berserk even when they are at 40/2 in 3 overs since now they only have three more wickets in hand and have to bat for another 17 overs. If the number of players was 11, they would merrily smack the ball around, safe in the knowledge that their batting arsenal hasnt yet padded up. In addition, allowing six overs per bowler means that there is an incentive for the team to have specialist bowlers rather than relying on part-timers. If you only allowed four overs per bowler, as the case is currently, then that encourages teams to stack up their sides with batsmen and relying primarily on part-timers to do the bowling.Now, Harsha Bhogle's latest column talks about how it was imperative that the BCCI, and indeed the entire cricketing world, quickly adopted the new form of the game. He signed off thus.
So too, I believe, will Twenty20 enrich 50 overs cricket; with its innovation, its catching and fielding. I do think though that it must retain some place for the bowler. If it kills the contest between bat and ball, it is no longer cricket. We must then find another name for it, like football found futsal. If we take away the bowler, the game is doomed, it will get boring.
Maybe we should have teams of eleven with only seven allowed to bat. But in some form Twenty20 is imperative. That is the lesson from the last month of football.
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed -
|
Just out of interest, how many Twenty20 matches have you watched? I haven't found a particular problem with balance overall. Taunton is the only place where bowlers really get collared, although it's obviously all relative. That's Somerset's ground, and they've had probably the two best batsmen this year - Langer and White. But they finished second from bottom of their group.
Also, it took me a while to realise that this comment was referring to India, rather than the whole world:
‘‘I think this World Cup has been a tipping point,’’ he said. ‘‘By the time the football world cup of 2010 and the cricket World Cup of 2011 come around, I don’t think there will be a huge difference in advertising rates charged by television companies.’’
None this year. I saw quite a few games last year. I felt it was quite interesting, but that if only only a limited set of batsmen were allowed to bat, there was a greater chance of bowlers enjoying the game. It actually doesn't make sense that 11 batsmen were allowed to bat for 50 over cricket and 11 batsmen are allowed to bat for 20 over cricket too, when bowlers are only allowed 4-5 overs each.
I certainly think Twenty20 has a future, but in my opinion, I'd not have all the star players play in these games. Tours could become pretty draining, especially if there were tests, one-dayers and Twenty20 games.
By 
Jagadish (22 Jul 2006, 1:04:00 am)
We'd prefer if you posted comments with your real name to add more credibility to your opinions. However, the moderators reserve the right to delete comments, especially those containing offensive or unsuitable language. The opinions in the comments are your own views. You are welcome to provide a URL to your own cricket blog, but the moderators reserve the right to delete comments which only reference sites for viewing live streams.
Links within entries open in a new window. Some of the links may now be broken/not take you to the expected report since the original content providers may have archived/removed the contents. Some of the sites linked may require registration/subscription.
All opinions expressed are those of the authors alone. The authors' respective employers (past, present or future) are in no way connected to the opinions expressed here.
All pictures, photographs used are copyrights of the original owners. We do not intend to infringe on any copyright. Pictures and photographs are used here to merely accentuate and enhance the content value to our readers.
|
|
|
|
Post a Comment