Is Twenty20 cricket a sham?

Greg Russell writes: I awoke this morning to news that Pakistan had beaten Australia in the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa. I immediately thought to myself “I bet Pakistan won the toss and elected to bowl first, and I bet Australia’s fifth bowler was belted”. Now that I have seen the scorecoard, I have confirmed that I was correct in what I surmised (Symonds and Clarke bowled 3.1 overs between then for a return of 0/44). Let me explain.

Secret 1 of Twenty20 cricket is to bowl first; better said, it is to bat second. This first became clear to me last summer when I heard New Zealand coach John Bracewell say on NZ radio that from Twenty20 results to that point in time in first-class cricket, the side batting second won about 80% of the time. Has anyone else noticed that at the current World Cup in South Africa, all 4 matches involving Australia have been won by the team batting second?

Why this situation? As a sage friend of mine put it, “The problem is that if one bats first it is very hard to decide what to do; bat second and you know.” This has come through in Ricky Ponting’s comments in South Africa. After the debacle aganst Zimbabwe (when he won the toss and elected to bat), Ponting lamented that the top-order had not respected the conditions, in which Zimbabwe’s modest bowlers had looked like world-beaters. In other words, Australia didn’t know how to bat in the conditions, and presuming they had to go for quick runs, they got out. Later, after winning the toss and electing to bowl first against Bangladesh, Ponting (who has always been a quick learner) commented that he had wanted to first of all have a look at the pitch and see what it did.

The objection to this theory will be that it applies to all forms of cricket. But the point is that in the longer forms one has time on one’s side. This applies even in 50-over cricket: if you choose to bat first, you can use the first 5-10 overs to evaluate the conditions in terms of pace, bounce and swing (as Hayden and Gilchrist generally do), work out the optimum batting approach, and then spend the next 45-40 overs playing accordingly. Sure, for 5-10 overs one suffers the disadvantage of a non-optimal scoring rate, but this is counterbalanced by the pressure of posting a total and by lower, slower conditions by the end of the opposition’s innings. By contrast, if you spend 5-10 overs evaluating conditions in Twenty20 cricket, then you have no hope, because that can be up to half of your innings wasted. Further, the opposition also learns about the conditions during this period, so they know what to do when they bat.

Secret 2 of Twenty20 cricket is that it is much more of a bowler’s game than people realise. My first inkling of this also came last summer, when Jamie Cox was asked on ABC radio why Victoria and Tasmania were the best two teams at Twenty20 in Australia (they contested the domestic final). Without hesitation he answered “Because they have the best bowlers”. Everyone’s bowling figures in Twenty20 look bad, but that is just by “traditional” standards. In truth there is a huge difference between going for 6 per over (as the best bowlers at this Twenty20 World Cup, e.g. Stuart Clark and Daniel Vettori) and 12 or more per over.

My own further development of this theory is my observation from this World Cup is that it is crucial to pick 5 bowlers who can bowl with genuine skill. Jayasuriya went for 0/64 off 4 overs against Pakistan, while Symonds was Australia’s only bowler who got hammered against both England and Pakistan. And yet both these players are normally very effective bowlers in 50-over cricket (can anyone ever remember Jayasuriya going for 64 off 10 overs in 50-over cricket?). What is the reason for this difference? I believe it is that in 50-over cricket, fear generally prevails, and as long as someone bowls straight and on a length (as Jaya and Symo), batsmen are respectful. However, in Twenty20 the timeframe is so short that batsmen have no choice but to be bold. Thus they go after the non-specialist bowlers, and they are finding – surprise, surprise! – that when Jaya or Symo (or the like) lob a ball onto the spot, it can easily be hit out of the ground.

So my memo to the Australian selectors is to play a genuine 5th bowler, e.g. Shane Watson or even Ben Hilfenhaus. This would give a better return than playing Hodge or M Clarke, and using a part-timer as our 5th bowler. The teams doing best at this WC are those who have 5 players who can bowl with some genuine skill, e.g. Pakistan and South Africa.

Secret 3 of Twenty20 cricket is that middle-order batsmen must be able to clear the boundary. Sri Lanka and India are the big sufferers in this regard: they have lots of skill in their middle order, but it doesn’t really help in Twenty20 cricket, because these players are too small to clear the boundary, and that is the only way of raising the scoring rate through overs 7-20. Thus we have seen a succession of Indian and Sri Lankan get caught on the boundary, while players of much less batting skill, such as Craig McMillan and Albie Morkel, have been successful because they can hit 6s.

My advice to the Indian selectors would be to bat Dhoni and Sehwag in the middle order rather than the top order, because they are India’s only 6-hitters. All the (smaller) Indian batsmen can hit 4s during the first 6 overs when there are fielding restrictions in place, but these same players will flounder later in the innings when there are men on the boundary: they must be satisfied with just singles and twos, which is not enough in Twenty20, otherwise they will get out in trying to clear the boundary.

From an Australian perspective, we should really either not play Clarke and Hodge, who struggle to clear the boundary, or else we should bat them in the first 4 overs. Even better would be to play Cameron White, whom the selectors unfortunately ignored: he’s a magnificent 6-hitter (as we saw in a Twenty20 match against England at the SCG last January), and he can bowl with just enough skill to challenge a batsman. It is this sort of player (Afridi, McMillan, Morkel, etc.) that is dominating this tournament, but we sent White to Pakistan instead.

What else can one learn from the above?

In terms of this tournament, it is most likely to be won by a team that has big-hitting all-rounders, i.e., teams whose lesser bowlers can still ask some questions of batsmen in terms of bowling skill, and who have 6-hitters in the middle order. NZ, Pakistan and South Africa are 3 such teams; the first two are already through to the semis, and the odds are that South Africa will join them.

In terms of the future of Twenty20, one wonders whether Indians will tire of it as they continue to be beaten by teams like New Zealand and South Africa, who have players of lesser skill but of much bigger physical stature, and therefore who can clear the boundary. Since everything in cricket is driven by Indian money, Twenty20 will disappear if Indians tire of it.

Most of all, because of “secret 1” above, one wonders if Twenty20 is a sham: the odds will always be in favour of the team batting second. Sooner or later spectators will cotton onto this simple fact, and the game will be ruined as a contest. Of course no rule is absolute, and sometimes the team batting first will win, e.g. NZ has won its last two matches batting first (but only because of the 6-hitting ability of McMillan, Oram and Styris, something the opposition could not match – see “secret 3” above). If I were a betting man, I’m sure there is money to be made from placing bets as soon as it is known which team in a Twenty20 contest is batting second …