Tuesday, September 15, 2009

An Elixir for ODI's

One day cricket is in news again, albeit for all the wrong reasons. I am not in favour of abolishing it.
For crickets sake we need to Ensure the primacy of Test cricket and need to make it elitist. Restrict it to 8 nations. Use T20's as a tool to popularize cricket and use ODI's as a bridge between Tests and T20's. Cricket should follow a 4 year calendar. The bottom two of the eight nations be relegated. To make ODI's more interesting it is imperative to make changes and bring the bowler back in the game. I don't agree with the concept of 2 25 over innings. Shane warne had proposed this around 5 years ago. At that time it looked interesting, but not any more with the advent of T20's.

Some of the changes I propose:
1. Introduce a min cap for bowlers and abolish the max cap. I suggest, make it compulsory for 4 bowlers to bowl 10 overs each. No restriction on max no of overs a bowler can bowl. This eliminates the need for bits and pieces players. The bane of ODI cricket.
2. Abolish the concept of runners for batsmen. It's equivalent to chucking by bowlers. No substitute fielders either. This will ensure only genuinely fit players will play.
3. Better ball which will last 50 overs. This will bring back reverse swing into play.
4. Increase the bouncer limit to 2 per over.
5. Reintroduce backfoot no ball rule. If the non striker can leave the crease before the bowler delivers then the bowler too shall be allowed some lee way.
6. Restriction on boundar dimensions. The bounday ropes need to be atleast 75m. We need to give the spinner a chance to take wicket. Entice and deceive the batsman. I was aghast to see Hayden beaten in flight hit a 6. Modern bats and short boundaries are a sure shot death sentence for spinners.