As he announced Cricket Australia’s plans for a radical departure from 50-over matches, James Sutherland readily admitted there was no real consensus about reform.
“As many interviews as we have had, we have probably had twice as many opinions as to how the game should be structured or formatted,” said Sutherland, CA’s chief executive, last week.
At the time, it did not appear to be a problem for Sutherland, but it has only taken a few days for the game’s various stakeholders to demonstrate exactly how divided they are about how to rejuvenate a moribund game.
Views range from Channel Nine’s desire for a fast-food, “20-over Test match” model, to the players’ more cautious position that only minimal tweaking is required.
Some, including Australian batsman Mike Hussey and national selector Merv Hughes, are vocal in their opposition to any tampering whatsoever.
“A lot of people are worried that that (50-over cricket) will die off but I don’t think it will,” Hughes told Irish radio.
“A lot of people like the first 15 overs and the last 10 but I’m particularly interested in the overs from 15 to 40 and the teams that do well there normally win the tight games.
“It is a game with a little bit of substance.”
Hussey’s aversion to the chopping of 10 overs from 50 to 40, as seems likely, was based on his experiences in English county cricket, where the split innings format Sutherland advocates has been tried in second XI matches this year.
Participants indicated that, like an unpromising experiment between Western Australia and Mike Atherton’s English tourists in 1994 that saw two innings divided into 25-over segments, such change does not necessarily enhance the experience.
“I think the jury is still out, in the two games we’ve played I’ve seen both sides of it,” Leicestershire seconds coach Phil Whitticase told the website Cricinfo.
“In the first we had Northamptonshire 76 for 6 after 20 overs and it meant we could play very steady cricket and won the game.
“I called it second-gear cricket, which isn’t want you want.
“But in the second, against Surrey on a very good pitch, we won a good chase off the penultimate ball and it was a close game throughout.
“It certainly seemed to have more merit after that second game, but the feedback we have got is that some games could be over (early).”
Television’s answer to this conundrum is to plump for a fresh set of 10 wickets at the start of each bracket of 20/25 overs, an option that would remove any resemblance to the current format.
By way of balance, bowlers would then be freed of over restrictions, allowing the best players free rein in both innings and reducing the rest to minimal roles.
But the players are likely to be opposed to any concept that has the length of an innings shortened so drastically, thereby turning the contest into essentially a double Twenty20 fixture.
Australian captain Ricky Ponting was quick to clarify that there would be only 10 wickets spread across the 40 overs in the trial format, a world away from Channel Nine’s preference.
“You’ve got 40 overs to bat, from what I believe, and only the one innings, so there’ll be some challenges there,” he said.
“If you’re a not out batsman come the 18th, 19th or 20th over of the first innings how are you going to play it?
“You want to make sure you’re around to start the next innings so you might just want to pull the reins in a little bit and make sure you get through that stage.
“In saying that, they could easily put a powerplay in the last five overs of that first 20 overs as well, which would make it very interesting then – do teams go hard with the chance of losing wickets?
“I’m interested and very keen to have some input with where they decide to go with the playing conditions.”
One area traditionalists are cautiously optimistic about is the thought that split innings would allow a more even spread of match conditions for the two competing teams.
Batting under lights has long been considered more difficult than fielding, unless heavy dew turns the outfield into a skating rink and dramatically tilts the balance.
“It would certainly even up the contest under lights,” Sussex second XI coach Mark Davis told Cricinfo.
“I remember playing in South Africa, at places like Centurion and Durban, where you could basically win the toss and win the match because one team had 50 overs when the ball was zipping around all over the place.
“Split innings would certainly help balance that out.”
Looking on from afar is the International Cricket Council, and their CEO Haroon Lorgat did not seem overly convinced of the need for changes.
“Whilst we are trialling these things at domestic level we are still quite confident that 50-overs at international level will survive,” Lorgat told Cricinfo.
“What we probably need to be focussing on is the context in which it is being played, the quantity of 50-over matches and when it is scheduled.
“At international level I don’t hold the view that the format is as challenged as it is at domestic level.”
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