Jhakas | Sanjay Jha
The International Cricket Council ( ICC) had earlier stated it’s intent on making cricket (being officially played by just 10 countries) into a global sport like football. In its hurried attempt to ape the game, they have borrowed the FIFA penalty shoot-out formula in case of drawn games. Let me clarify, they are not going to have cricketers get into knee-length shorts, change shoes, and kick the small hard leather cherry even as the wicket-keeper performs aerodynamic feats in front of a goal-post. In fact, what the august body wants to introduce in the Champions Trophy is the novel concept of 5 bowlers from each side hitting the three lonesome sticks, and those who hit the bull’s eye the most are declared the eventual winners. This wicket-breaking new rule will be applied only if there is a tie during either the semi-finals or finals of the Champions Trophy tournament.
It is obvious that the ICC did not want to invest sufficient time into coming up with a better alternative to either a winner being decided on the toss of a coin (a rather outdated anachronism in today’s times) or this 5 bowlers-hit-the -stumps-recipe. Unfortunately, while anything is better than a silly flip of a 50 paise coin, lacking as it does in broadcast value and dramatic suspense, the new suggestion is terribly flawed and highly incongruous. Let’s see why. Continue reading below
1) Firstly, cricket is a game where both batsmen and bowlers make a contest. How can we have just the bowler’s accuracy abilities alone determine the outcome of a match? In football, both the scorers and the goal-keeper are involved in the knock-out, remember? For every offender, we need a defender or offender on the other side to make it a level-playing field.
2) In football, only the goal scored by hitting the ball into the net determines the final winner. In cricket, there are a number of ways in which a batsman can be given out; caught, LBW, hit wicket, stumped, run-out etc. How can we have the deciding criterion for winning the championship on one single method of “getting out” only? It may be the most practicable one to implement, but it still does not justify it.
3) We also may have the atrocious exhibition of a fast bowler like Brett Lee “ aim” to hit the wicket at a snail’s pace; frankly, it will look like a silly spectacle. And those having a shot at the wicket need not be bowlers at all; all a team will need is experts who can hit the bull’s eye. Period. Chuckers, whoever they are, will have a field day.
4) Technically, teams can resort to under-arm bowling to hit the lonely stumps. Is that the way we should determine the world champions in the event of a tie ( by it’s very definition, please note , that a tie match is intrinsically a thriller ).
Instead, I recommend the following:
Give each team 1 over to face.
Each team to choose 5 best bowlers
One selected bowler will be entitled to bowl 2 balls
Each team will select top 5 batsmen.
One batsman will face 2 balls . The others will face one ball each.
Only the selected 5 players are allowed to field ( One bowler plus four fielders).
Wicket-keeper will be allowed behind the stumps as usual.
Runs can be scored in every way possible and the batsman can be declared out as the case might be.
All fielders will have to be in the 15 over restricted area, as in Power-Play.
The above will ensure high-drama, fair play, equal opportunities for both batsmen and bowlers, and a great result without any of the glaring inadequacies of bowlers-hitting-stumps formula. After all, following an electrifying tie in the semi-finals or finals no less, don’t we deserve better?
Over to ICC and you.
