First off, I am not a huge fan of the game. I simply cannot recollect the last time I watched a game of Cricket end to end, ball by ball. Even the World Cup finals of 2011 which India won, I did not see from the start. But I must confess I saw the last several overs and I also shouted and paraded with my relatively enthusiastic colleagues when the final six was hit, which led to India winning the world cup after a hiatus of 28 years. But I have been thinking lately using the impressions I have gathered based on the little Cricket I do see and the conversations I have had with people around me. I have a wishlist of change of rules and patterns for One Day International format. I would love to hear what you think about it.
Especially in this World Cup which had a nightmare conclusion, I kept noticing how commentators kept emphasizing the importance of winning the toss. Fifty overs is a very long time and thus it makes sense that the conditions which prevail during the first 50 overs and the second set of 50 overs are likely to be substantially different, giving either the edge to the side that bats first or the side that bowls first. But I feel that if the toss can play a role enough to compensate for lack of skill or consistency, then the game does not have fair rules.
Take football for example - the advantage a team experiences by winning the toss is not substantial. Furthermore, in the second half of the game the same advantage is taken by the opposite team. But this does not seem to be the case in Cricket, especially when playing on grounds or venues where the changes in conditions across the day can be substantial.
So, here is what I propose could be changed. We use the toss to let one team choose whether they wish to bat first or bowl first. The innings start and once 25 overs are concluded, there is a break. The ball used for the first innings is secured somehwere, a fresh ball is taken out and the teams exchange roles. The batting team bowls and the bowling team bats. This goes on for another 25 overs. And once again the roles are reversed but the ball used in the first 25 overs is taken out and play is continued.
In other words, the One Day International becomes a 5 times compressed version of a test match. Now, how would this help?
I can't help but feel that today's Cricket is a very batsmen centric game. Whether this is by design or by some engineering of the game pattern or something in my head - I do not know. For example, a bowler bowls a tight line and just does not let the batsman play. For four balls, we see marvelous bowling at work - the run rate is falling, the score is being arrested - and whack - a four followed by a six and those four dot balls don't truly matter. Ten runs given off an over is substantial.
But imagine now that we had a different set of rules. For every 2 dot balls, we subtract runs from the board. And the amount of runs we substract becomes higher, the more consecutively these pairs of dot balls are bowled. Let me explain it using an example.
The score is 20 runs, a fresh over is being bowled. The bowler bowls two incredibly tight balls - the batsman is clueless on how to hit them. We subtract a run from the total, so the score is now 19! Two more dot balls - since there are now 4 consecutive, we double up and subtract 2 runs. So, the score is now 17! Another dot ball, maybe we can forgive. Let's say now that the batsman manages to hit a big one. The score comes to 23, instead of 26 had we not subtracted the runs to award the dot balls.
Think of it like the negative marking rule in a multiple choice test. The above example is just one way to do it but details can be worked out. What matters is that the batting team must pay a price for too many consecutive dot balls. This will then make the extra centimeter of running by a fielder to make the dot ball a dot ball even more worth it. It will push the bowler to try and make it even more worth his time to bowl the toughest bowls.
So, to summarize, what I am suggesting is the introduction of a rule which subtracts run off the batting side when the bowler bowls good dots. Here is what I hope can be achieved with such a rule:
This is not a suggestion or a wish in the rules of the game per se but a suggestion for how to decide victors in important tournaments such as the World Cup or the T20 World Cup. Let's not rely on a single match to decide the final victor. Let there be multiple matches and ensure that the victor wins a majority of these matches. So the victor can be said to win by consistency of performance and not a stroke of luck.
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What do you think about these ammendments? Especially the first two. Would you like to see atleast a few matches played this way? If yes, do let me know how we can take these suggestions to the relevant people.