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Waqar Younis knows a thing or two about bowling. The former Pakistan pacer, who terrorised batsmen all over the world in the 1990s, made some rather pertinent remarks the other day about modern-day cricket being unfair on the bowlers. “There are a lot of things going in the batsmen’s favour and it is a crowd-pull thing but I feel it has become an unfair contest,” Younis, who is now the coach of Pakistan, was quoted as saying.
He has a fair point.
Since the start of the ICC World Cup, there have been 19 totals above 300. In the previous eight editions of the World Cup, there had been only 26 times a team crossed that mark. Three teams have scored above 400 and the average number of runs scored in the last 10 overs is almost close to 100. If the International Cricket Council (ICC) doesn’t look into this issue, then bowlers will soon become quite irrelevant and it will become a lopsided affair.
Almost all the conditions – flatter pitches, smaller boundaries, fielding restrictions and meatier bats -- seem to be tilted in the favour of the batsmen. The advent of T20 and Indian Premier League has meant that it’s the sixes and fours that bring fans into the stands, not googlys and yorkers. It’s as yet an unproven assumption that it’s the batsmen who are the crowd pullers and not bowlers. Menacing fast bowling or bewitching spinners can make the game as exciting as the big-hitting batsmen.
Pitches all over the world are tailor-made for batsmen to make merry. There’s hardly any grass on the wicket which makes it easier for batsmen to plunder the hapless bowlers. The game between Australia and New Zealand in Auckland perhaps was an aberration and a case in point that you don’t always need big scores to make a match entertaining. If the pitches have something for the bowlers, it can still be an exciting contest, even if scores don’t cross even 200.
The ICC has gradually made the sport completely batsmen-oriented by tampering with the rules quite often. The batsmen use bats which are extremely thick on the edge. For instance, the bat Chris Gayle uses is more than 45mm on the edge, which means that even if he edges a shot, it can easily cross the boundary line.
The bowlers tried to reverse swing in the past but ICC clamped down on them by asking not to scratch the cricket ball or indulge in ball tampering. Even the fielders are instructed not to throw the ball on the ground in order to avoid scruff marks on it which could help reverse swing.
It’s mandatory for teams to have five players inside the circle once the Power Plays are over. This, too, gives immense scope for batsmen to hit the big shots and leaves bowlers badly exposed. Former England spinner Graeme Swann took to Twitter the other day and said, “On behalf of all bowlers, bring back the fifth fielder outside the circle #batsmansgame”.
If these thing weren’t enough, bowlers are harshly punished for bowling a no-ball. As if bowling the delivery again wasn’t deemed good enough a punishment, now batsmen get a “free-hit” as well. It’s hardly a fair contest and borders on the line of boring.
ICC, on its part, did come out and say that they are considering clamping down on the size of the bats and use of maximum boundary sizes in stadiums. These will be steps in the right direction to arrest the imbalance which plagues limited overs cricket.
Cricket should be an even contest with both batsmen and bowlers getting fair opportunities. At the moment, it’s the batsmen who are calling the shots.
