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Most cricket games belong to batsmen. Countless others belong to bowlers, or at least used to.
Think of the ODI bowling greats of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, who crushed or contained dangerous batting line-ups.
Yes, cricket is a contest between ‘teams’. But isn’t it also – the single delivery, over, spell – a contest between ‘individuals’?
Football has duels where attacker and defender are locked in combat. But largely, it is the team that looms as the ‘contest’ moves from one pair of feet to another. Even the referee is running around.
But cricket? The ball is returned every few seconds to the scene of battle – the pitch. No matter how many times it’s hurled away, it’s always hurled back to that arena where the actors remain, more or less as they were.
Batsman at batsman’s crease, a bowler at his, non-striker at his, wicket-keeper at his, close-in fielder at his and umpire at his. Yes, we saw what bat just did to ball. Now we want to see if it can do it again.
Cricket tests batsmen, from both ends. It tests with spin, with pace, with left-arm, right-arm, with over the wicket and around. So cricket fans cheer good bowlers as much as they do good batsmen (or classy fielders and wicket-keepers). If batsmen aren’t tested, where’s the contest?
Do we now have a new species – the ‘batsman’ fan?
Cricket is a team sport. But it celebrates individual performance even more than team performance. Isn’t that why we fuss over greatest players?
So, ignore individual achievement. Or accept that the game includes (within that team battle) another fascinating battle between individuals and between bat and ball.
WG Grace may be excused his contempt for the bowler when he said: “Folks have come to see me bat, not you bowl”. Quality bowling, fielding, umpiring hadn’t evolved. No contest.
What happened when great bowlers eventually out-thought even the most accomplished batsmen? What happened to the batsman’s game then? Didn’t we commend Muttiah Muralitharan’s 35 caught-and-bowled feats, foxing the most powerful forearms at the other end?
Didn’t we praise Akram when 35 per cent of his wickets were bowled dismissals (out of his ridiculously high haul of 502 ODI wickets). Didn’t we cheer Waqar Younis and his 13 incredible five-for ODI innings?
Didn’t we celebrate Glenn McGrath’s record haul of 27 wickets from 11 matches (economy rate of four with seven maidens) in the single Carlton-United series in 1998-99? And wasn’t mention of the name Curtly Ambrose enough to tighten the sphincter of even the gum-chewing, swaggering batsmen of his era.
They bowled to the most proven, most tested ODI bats ever. Batsmen aren’t the only ones who win matches. Great bowlers too earn man of the match trophies.
Prescriptions to even the balance agonise over sizes (bats, boundaries). But that’s mechanics. For every few ODIs in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s where batsmen dominated there were others where bowlers did. The balance had become more, if not perfectly, even. Calibre of resistance had gone up – bowling, fielding, tech-umpiring.
But in the last six to eight years or so, while batting skill has proliferated, bowling skill has plummeted. The band of today’s deadly bowlers pales in comparison with the battalion of their more dependable predecessors.
Balance has more to do with sharpening bowling. Who’d call any of the ODI bowling greats bit players?
Fielding rules can occasionally blunt good bowling but that bat isn’t missing ball or that ball isn’t finding fielder (in spite of improved fielding) as much as it used to, is telling. We may argue over how to maintain balance between ball and bat. But isn’t balance, however imperfect, worth aspiring to?
If, as All Out Cricket‘s Peter Miller says, “the point is to score as many runs as you can”, why not drop bowlers altogether? Both sides – packed with batsmen – can hammer each other senseless. A trend now, because dangerous bowlers are endangered. But the point of ODIs is also to contain.
If, Wisden India Almanack editor Suresh Menon says, “A well-struck six is a reminder of what someone … better coordinated than us, is capable of”, why not pit 11 ODI bats against Under-11 bowlers? Wouldn’t that be a sight? Double tons, triple tons – ODI heaven!
The Bat(s)man is no Knight if he’s punching the petite Robin in the neck. He is who he is because he’s clobbering the colossal Bane.
Cricket, like any sport, is a contest. Rob it of its contest and you rob it of its sport.
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