Opinion
Much is made of the need to preserve and protect Test cricket from an unfortunate demise at the hands of the commercial potential of short-format cricket and 21st century attention spans.
Here are three ideas which the ICC should implement to help keep the five-day format relevant in the modern sporting landscape.
As viewers on Thursday were treated to the impressive spectacle of the injury-waylaid West Indies’ reserve wicket-keeper bowling medium pace to ease the burden of his fellow quicks after Marquino Mindley’s hamstring gave out, concerns about the longevity of the format were plain to see.
It must be said that Devon Thomas bowled creditably given the circumstances but after a day of Australians helping themselves to runs like proverbial pigs at a trough, there’s not a huge amount of incentive for casual, new or impartial fans to keep watching.
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So – given the general acceptance of the value of concussion substitutes, why couldn’t there be an equivalent measure in place to replace any player ruled out mid-match due to injury?
(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
There will of course be outcry about history, tradition, unfair advantage and all the rest – but in truth these concerns have either been worked through or dismissed through the implementation of the concussion sub.
So long as the injury was confirmed by a scan and/or and independent doctor, and the proposed replacement was agreed on by captains ahead of the match (ie when they exchange team sheets), it would improve the baseline standard and ensure matches remain as competitive as they can.
This should appeal to players and most importantly help to retain the interest of the viewer. The game is better for the best players playing – this is obvious.
When an LBW is reviewed by either side, the TV umpire reviews the appeal in chronological order: front foot, inside edge on video, then Snicko, then Hot Spot, then onto ball tracking. There is a delightful irony in the way the umpires request “rock and roll” from the TV director – it couldn’t be more dull if it tried.
Why? The specifics are entirely moot if the ball isn’t hitting the stumps – duh, that’s the whole premise of the dismissal. Check if the ball is hitting the stumps first and work backwards from there to avoid spending time on permutations that are often proven to be irrelevant anyway.
I don’t buy that it adds to the dramatic element of a review – I’d rather watch more actual deliveries as quickly as possible. It may be that ball tracking takes time to prepare and so checking the other elements first actually saves time, but if this is the case, surely speeding up the process is something the ICC boffins can allocate resourcing towards helping.
My final recommendation ties in elements from the previous two. Currently, so much time is wasted in reviewing boundary fielding efforts to determine whether at any point in a fielder’s diving action to save a ball, any other part of their person, trouser, hair, spike or general aura touches the rope (which is in fact not a rope but a large piece of triangular foam laden with advertising). The question must again be asked – why?
It has long seemed harsh and arbitrary that a fielder is punished for actively preventing the ball hitting the rope because of a trailing foot or limb and a batter is essentially rewarded for not quite hitting the ball well enough to beat the fielder.
The laws of cricket should be as such to encourage the best displays of skill in every discipline, not favour the batter by default due to some tired and archaic convention of gentlemanliness.
Marnus Labuschagne of Australia celebrates making his century. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
In my view, a boundary should only be a boundary when the ball hits or passes the rope. This provides incentive to fielders and batters alike and reduces some of the most pointless and inconsequential replays that currently exist in the game.
The rules for a six can be tweaked slightly, too. In the current rules, when a batter fails to clear the rope and is caught on the boundary, but the fielder’s shoe touches the rope, the batter is awarded six runs. This is unfair – one party has successfully executed their required skill (catching) the other has failed (clearing the rope and missing the fielder).
So, I would define a six as the ball either landing beyond the rope, or a fielder who is holding the ball landing beyond the rope, without the ball having touched the ground prior in both cases. This continues to encourage those remarkable boundary-riding feats we have seen in recent years where a fielder is able to catch and then release the ball mid-air, and creates a greater balance between the two sides.
If the rules are not designed to reward teams for successfully executing the physical skills of the game, what are they doing? I just want to watch live cricket – not replays of its minutiae.
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