Cricket, as we have known so far, is on the cusp of change. The ICC recently announced the Future Tours Programme, outlining the tournaments and bilateral series to played by countries over the next 10 years. Although, this program is nothing more than maintaining the status quo and keeping cricket out of bounds for the rest of the non-cricketing world. Here are a few thoughts on sprucing up the game to be a more global sport, in the order of minor to major improvement ideas:
Jerseys
Cricket jerseys were introduced somewhere around the time of
1992 Cricket World Cup, before which existed an era of black and white, actually just white. Since then, the jerseys have only changed a little in terms of design. But the colors have stayed more or less the same (except
New Zealand who went from grey to black). Since then, numerous new teams have been added to the circuit (and relegated too). For example, today, there exist 4 teams with green jerseys:
South Africa,
Pakistan,
Kenya and
Ireland. In order to distinguish such teams better, the concept of home and away jerseys could be introduced. It would have been immensely helpful to spot
Indian vs
Sri Lankan players during
ICC CWC 2011 final. This will also make more sense after 'More the merrier' below.
iUmpire
Cricket has been really good about using technology (apart from American Football), to determine the fate of certain plays. The third umpire equipped with camera feeds and latest technologies like Hawk-Eye, Hot Spots can make virtually accurate decisions that are fair and free of human error. The downside of this has been a growing number of hesitant umpires to give a decision on field and instead refer it to the third umpire. Virtually all run-out appeals are sent to the third umpire for referral, and lately even high full tosses too for adjudicating a no-ball. This begs the question, what are the umpires, especially the leg-umpires left to do on the field? Why not invest, or rather re-invest the proceeds pf cricket into introducing better and faster technology for accurate on the field decisions?
Rain or shine
Cricket is a field sport. Hence, the weather has a significant impact on the game, if it happens that is. Cricket is one of the rare field sports in the world that gets severely affected by weather, leading to shortening the game or complete abandonment. While it may be argued that, domes could be built, it is an expensive and brawny solution. Cricket is unique in respect that it relies on the surface of the pitch for the game to happen. If there were overnight showers or continuing drizzles, the game is almost always abandoned and points shared. This is a disappointing sporting outcome, from players' and spectators' perspective, the latter of which happen to be spending their time and money on the sport. Unless the weather conditions are relentless during the game, the game should never be cancelled for overnight rain or ongoing drizzles. Why not make the game happen in such situations on an artificial surface that could be laid over the pitch. This will certainly change how the game will be played, but that will be the fun part of it. Innovation in cricket has full scope here in devising an artificial cricket pitch. Play rain or shine. Don't shortchange us spectators. Don't be unfair to the teams with cryptic Duckworth-Lewis calculations. Don't make the players play on dangerous and uneven bounce pitches.
Twenty20 for the win
It is no breaking news that Twenty20 cricket is here to stay. Why resist it and not let it be the face of cricket? It is a very young format for cricket that has long prided itself as a 5 day game. But, this has resulted in it becoming a niche sport than a true global sport. It is a little more than niche, but the ratio of Test status countries in the world to the number of countries in the world is negligible. Almost, all major sports have 32 teams competing in their respective world cups, while cricket can boast only 16, and even that has diluted the competitiveness. Twenty20 has great potential to spread the game fast and wide and in a couple of decades and bring up the competitiveness in World Cups that could feature 32 teams. A couple of decades is really fast considering how long the sport has existed. Isn't cricket being mulled for
2020 Olympic Games? It is just fitting to say that
2020 Olympics will have Twenty20 cricket. Tests can be ruled out, because by the time one game ends (potentially in a draw), US and China would be competing for their final gold medal tally.
More the merrier
Owing to it's lengthy format (read Test cricket and ODIs), cricket has not only become a niche sport, it is also a rare sport that features primarily bilateral clashes. American Football and Soccer lovers raise your hand if you think, National Football League, English Premier League or Champions League, is more exciting than a tour of the English soccer team to France, for 30 days. Now, this never happens, but such is the fate of cricket. While it may be argued that the
Ashes is hugely popular, and the
Border-Gavaskar trophy is rising in it's fame, raise your hand if you think these series are more exciting than Cricket World Cup, Champions Trophy, IPL or the more recent Champions League. 9/10 people tend to think of trophies and championships as multi-team, multi-nation tournaments, and it is way more fun than see two teams butting heads for 30 to 60 days. Twenty20 cricket offers us that option. Let's seize it.
Change is the only constant thing
If Twenty20s were to become the default version of cricket, a number of rules would need to altered, or added to make it more exciting and fair. Twenty20 is always labeled as two teams competing in slog overs, and the butchering of bowlers. There will be many suggestions to stanch the run flow and even the contest between batsmen and bowlers:
- Specialists - Have 2 teams, within the same team. When a team bowls, let it field a specialist bowling team, that consists of 11 players that are either bowlers or specialist fielders. This would make the bowling and fielding super competitive and sharp. Well, this game is not going to be converted into baseball, which is extremely fielding side friendly. Back to cricket. While the bowling team has all full time bowlers and fielders, the batting team line up has full time batsmen. Imagine a game, where bowling unit has Glenn McGrath, Dale Steyn, Shane Warne, Jonty Rhodes et al against Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting and company. This has the potential to raise the talent bar higher than ever. This will also spare the spectators from watching the tail being treated as sitting ducks by the bowling side when they have the game on their hands.
- Cricket has bye runs. Agreed, bye runs can never come unless the fielding team is caught napping or there is a mis-field or the bowlers bowl erratic. Cricket has leg byes. Agreed, it is always tough to tell, whether the batsmen got a fine nick or completely missed it. So while it could be unfair to the bowling side, the leg-bye rule applies to both the teams, and that evens itself out. But why do we still keep up with the glove rule? Why does a run off the glove attributed to a batsmen and why is the batsmen out on a catch off his gloves. Let's eliminate this confusing rule and deem it as a leg bye. Sorry bowlers, your task got a little tougher.
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