Restoring the balance in ODIs
An interesting discussion has just begun on Cricinfo's blog Wicket to Wicket about the changes that should be introduced to make ODIs an even contest between batsmen and bowlers. Bob Woolmer just made the first post in the discussion. And his controversial suggestion is:
Allow the ball to swing by adjusting the current legislation to allow bowlers to prepare the ball to reverse swing a lot earlier.For this, he suggests that the bowler should be allowed to rub one side of the ball. How this change can be accommodated without making all forms of ball tampering legit is left as an exercise to the reader.
On a related note, I just learnt about a new type of swing uncovered by some scientist at NASA, and already put into practice by England's bowling guru Troy Cooley. It's called contrast swing, and its distinguishing feature from conventional swing and reverse swing is that the seam is to be kept upright. Here is a detailed discussion (you might need to use bugmenot to get hold of an ID to access the article). Let's see how the mysteries around contrast swing unravel.
Update: The article I pointed to about contrast swing is no longer accessible. Here is the same article on another site.
posted by Harsha V. Madhyastha @ 7:15 PM
4 Comments:
Harsha, can you post the article from your cache? (Newindpress seems to be down).
I actually like the idea that bowlers should be allowed to choose their favorite balls (with some minor restrictions).
For example, at the end of 30 overs, you can choose balls that will reverse swing. At the start of the innings, you can choose between a Duke, Kookaburra or SG ball. Same with spinners.
And then prepare a good batting wicket (with not too short or too long boundaries).
Also, increase the bowling quota of the regular bowlers to 12/13 overs. Too many bits and pieces players have become a part of the ODI game.
Fielding restrictions to be reduced to two blocks of 5 overs, one each to be chosen by the fielding and batting side respectively.
I dislike the idea of increasing the number of bouncers per over. It can result in injuries.
I especially like the idea of modifying bowling quotas. Amit Varma cites that someone proposed totally doing away with bowling quotas. But, I like your idea of setting the limit at 12/13 overs better.
Having a fast bowler's mentality, I don't really care much about batsmen getting injured :P
And, I think they might as well totally do away with field restrictions.
Regarding use of balls, I read recently that almost all Test countries are moving towards use of Kookaburra because SG and Duke are going out of business.
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