The long-awaited changes to the points system for the Sheffield Shield were made public on Tuesday.
The changes, ratified at a Cricket Australia board meeting last week, will see the abolition of first innings points; replaced by a system of bonus points designed to reward attacking play in the first phase of the game. A point will now be awarded for both sides in the event of a draw, while outright wins will still be met with six points.
More precisely, batting sides will earn 0.01 bonus points per run scored over 200 in the first 100 overs of their first innings, uncapped. Bowling sides will receive 0.5 bonus points for each of the fifth, seventh and ninth wickets taken, if they are taken in the first 100 overs of their first bowling innings. Bonus points are on offer for both sides in the first inning, so both teams get the opportunity to earn them.
The changes are modelled on the first class scoring systems used in South Africa and England, and are notionally designed to encourage teams to behave more “Test Match like”.
These are fairly radical departures from the current system, which resulted in two points for a “win” on the first innings, and six points in the event of an outright victory.
According to Cricket Australia, the changes are in response to the dearth of quality batsmen doing the rounds in cricket’s farm system at the present, and part of their drive to bring more balance between bat and ball in the Shield.
The response was kicked off in the 2012-13 season, with curators of the various grounds around the country instructed to stop preparing “result” wickets – often green tops which almost always ended in an outright victory to one side – and instead try to more closely mimic the hard, dry, deteriorating pitches seen in international cricket.
In a way, state sides were responding to the incentives offered by the 2/6 points system; teams should be chasing as many points as possible, and in effect you have to take 20 wickets in order to be in with a shot of outright victory, and so pitches were prepared to give the best chance of this occurring.
And it’s hard to argue with the numbers, particularly from a couple of seasons back.
288 – the average number of overs per match. This compared to the 400 which are available as a minimum.
27.28 – the average number of runs per wicket. As a result, there were only 31 centuries scored (or just one per match).
1,767 – the total number of overs bowled by spinners. This meant spinners bowled just 19.8 per cent of overs played in the Shield, which is clearly too few compared to what you’d expect to see in a Test Match.
These numbers don’t make for pretty reading, so it’s no wonder Cricket Australia have taken some steps to try to address the structural issues facing the competition.
What’s likely to happen?
Will the changes have the desired impact? I think so, and for a couple of reasons. This all comes back to incentives:
– The number of points on offer in the first innings is now at least 1.5 (for the three wickets taken bowling) and could be, well, unlimited. Of course no side is going to make 1,000 runs in the first 100 overs, but let’s say the “Test Match effect” actually occurs and a side is able to lift their average going rate to 4.0 an over. That would mean they’d receive two points batting in their first innings. That’s now 3.5 points guaranteed, instead of possibly two points depending on what happens with the other side. This change rewards action over circumstance, creating a stronger incentive for attacking play. So that’s a big tick.
– Having the one point on offer for a draw all of a sudden gives a side a greater incentive to hang on for the final day’s play. There was already a fairly strong incentive (stopping your opponent from winning six points), and so this effect is likely to be more muted than on the face of it, but offering a reward (winning a point, and taking five points off the opponent) as oppose to deferring a punishment (losing, and thereby giving the opponent six points) is a more positive incentive. So that’s a tick, but not a big tick.
– By keeping the six points on offer for an outright win, Cricket Australia is still rewarding sides that are able to dominate, ram home an advantage, or turn around a seemingly difficult situation; all important facet of strong Test Match sides and therefore players. Keeping this feature is a tick.
The biggest downside that I can see from these changes is that they encourage sides to be too aggressive in the first innings, which results in a proliferation of the kind of low scores that Cricket Australia is keen to avoid.
Sides may lose clusters of wickets as they approach the 100 over mark, which could work to dampen their ability to “set up” the game on the first innings while also giving their opponents additional points they may not have received otherwise. I think this effect will be mostly mitigated by the retention of the six points for an outright win, but it’s still a risk.
Its not really possible to back cast this kind of change on previous years of the Shield – the incentive changes are too dramatic to produce anything credible – but I think at this early stage it’s fair to say the Shield will be all the better for it. Purists may decry the “interference” created by bonus points and incentives, but for one thing Shield purists are few and far between these days (which is a real shame).
In the end, these changes are for the greater good, and will likely result in the creation of conditions that are more akin to what you would expect to see in a Test Match.
Why stop here?
But – there’s always a but – if the goal is to create more “Test Match like” conditions, would a more sensible reform be to, well, change the rules to mirror Test Matches?
Sheffield Shield games are played over four days, and there is in effect an unlimited number of overs which can be played. I can remember some days of cricket at the WACA during the height of summer stretching well into 100 overs.
Cricket Australia was keen to point out when releasing these changes that the average Shield game was starting to approach the average Test Match in terms of average overs (336 overs, compared to the Test Match average of around about 360) as a result of its directives surrounding pitch preparation. This is a positive development, but in effect means games still only have the capacity to go for four days, as opposed to five in Test Matches.
So, why not just make Shield games five day matches rather than four? This would mean pitch deterioration more closely mirrors what would be expected in a Test Match, while players would be required to be in a physical condition that allowed them to play for that longer period of time.
All of a sudden, captains would have to become more judicious in the way they used their bowlers in the same way they are during Test Matches, while aggressive batting and risk taking in the first innings would become less risky with the knowledge that there’s an extra day’s play available to turn the result around.
There are some stumbling blocks to this, for sure. The summer of cricket is already incredibly crowded, with Shield matches played every other week at some points of the season last year to make room for the Big Bash League (and this will be a more significant issue this year with Australia joint-hosting the World Cup).
If you believe the rhetoric, playing for longer periods will likely result in higher injury rates, which may eat into the depth of talent available at a first class level.
Like a lot of more radical changes, this is the kind of reform which may be difficult to get over the line without a strong body of evidence that the benefits outweigh the costs.
On this basis, you can see why CA have gone with the less radical, more incremental steps of first changing the way pitches are prepared and then introducing bonus points. They are largely tried and tested, and have a strong chance of creating the kind of change to the structure and incentives of the competition CA is seeking.
That doesn’t mean the option isn’t on the table though, and for mine, moving the Shield to a five-day format is the next logical step to making conditions more “Test Match like”.
Note: the figures cited in this article are sourced from Cricket Australia’s article discussing the change. Stats on domestic cricket are very hard to come by, and have meant this piece is perhaps a bit less analytical than I would’ve liked. But I hope you find it interesting regardless.
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