Tipping point
Back in high school, my mate and I found a copy of Card Cricket amongst the school’s educational board games. So we wasted a few rainy lunch hours simulating tests between his World XI and my NZ XI. I was as good at cards as I was at real cricket, so things generally didn’t go well for the NZ XI. One day however, Viv Richards really let loose on me. He piled up a century and marched towards his double. I just could not get him out, no matter what I threw down. It was bloody frustrating. I suspect though that the problem was that I simply didn’t have the combinations left in my hand to get a wicket. Play my cards as I might, the game had broken to my detriment.
It has occurred to me on occasion that the game of cricket is played well within it’s ultimate limits. In ODIs, batsmen score about 6 runs an over. However, they could be scoring at 6 times that. There is a lot of scope there.
In recent years, batting has improved considerably. Averages and strike rates have risen. In previous decades there have been only 1, 2 or no players with strike rates over 100, all of them late-innings sloggers. In the 00s we have 5, including actual batsmen. Might there come a point along this curve of improvement when a batsman starts to dominate bowlers to such an extent that they become completely ineffectual? When the batsman can score off every ball and only has to worry about getting himself out. The whole game, which is based on some sort of balance between bat and ball, would break down.
March 14th, 2009 at 11:30 am
I cannot predict how administrators of the game will act, but surely it’s the policy of preparing flat decks (ie. “good wickets” according to batsmen) that allows more high-SR slogging and allows the emasculation of bowlers, not just an improvement in batting. Someone has to stand up for the bowlers and prepare a greater variety of wickets.
We didn’t have Card Cricket in Australia, we had Calculator Cricket at my high school, which entriely centers around the “Ran #” button.
March 14th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
In India, we had the even more rudimentary “Book cricket”. You open a page at random, and the last digit of the page number determined the result of a delivery; 0 was out, 8 was 1 run, 2 4 and 6 were just that (number of runs).
It’s getting pretty tiring to see bowlers being reduced to supporting actor roles; but it appears that even on pitches which offer assistance early on, like Hamilton’s on Wednesday, a run fest is in the offing simply because all changes that have happened in the game in the last decade have favoured the batsmen alone.
March 15th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
It’s getting pretty tiring to see bowlers being reduced to supporting actor roles
It’s interesting to re-read this comment after yesterday’s game, where the bowlers dominated during most of the Indian innings. While the advantages are with the batsmen these days, the balance does ebb and flow.
March 15th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Someone has to stand up for the bowlers and prepare a greater variety of wickets.
Absolutely. You almost get the feeling that the various grounds around the world are competing to feature record scores.
Much greater interest in the game will come from a variety in the results.
I suppose many Indian fans left the game yesterday disappointed in not getting to see the Indians hit out again. But I loved watching Mills and O’Brien getting the opportunity to do something with the ball and duel with the batsmen. The Indian bowlers too were getting movement, which made the NZ batting performance that much more enjoyable to watch.