Proposals to radically change Test Cricket

[Dissector]

I guess it depends on the country. In India matches are often shown on cricket-only channels like Star Cricket and Neo.

 

[speirz]

Proposal # 5 : Play an extra hour and cut out a day of test cricket.

With an eight ball over if we could squeeze in another hour's play, we could actually go to four days and still have at least as much cricket as we are getting from five days with 90 6 ball overs.

With the problems of scheduling being what they are, and the playewrs being away from families for long periods, cutting down 20 percent by way of days in Test cricket is a big thing,. It is doable given the will.

How would 4 days solve the extra workload though? Organisations could just see one less day per match as a chance to squeeze some extra games into the tour, or to fit more tours into one season. In a five-test tour for instance, that's 5 extra days which could just see more OD or T20 games crammed in.

 

[Son Of Coco]

For mine it (8 balls per over) seems like an arbitrary number, why not go for 7 ball overs for instance?

2 balls an over, you'd get 270 overs in a day.

 

[Son Of Coco]

1 ball an over...







540 overs.

 

[Richard]

0.2 balls per over FTW IMO.

 

[SJS]

Thats probably my least favorite suggestion thus far SJS. I think scheduling in itself would find its own way to be exactly as poor with four day cricket as it is with five, if there is more time to spare it will be filled in with something else. Also this gives more time for rain to wash away a match completely as a whole day being rained out isn't out of the question, which if it happened in this context would almost certainly mean a match wouldn't get a result.

As for having an extra day in case of rain? They could do this with five day cricket but it is a television production problem more than a cricketing one. TV companies can't afford buy a spot that they might not use, its a massive waste of money whenever it doesn't rain.

Rescheduling is not the only advantage.

If I had to take time off from work to watch a Test match, I would love it if it was just two days I needed to take off rather than three (assuming I do not work on Saturday Sunday anyway).

As for the authorities squeezing more cricket into the extra days, well the whole thing is a hypothetical excercise to reform, which would be impossible in any case if the same guys ran the game the same way anyway.

Scheduling will come as yet another proposal. Have patience. I am rushing them through for this reason.

 

[Athlai]

Rescheduling is not the only advantage.

If I had to take time off from work to watch a Test match, I would love it if it was just two days I needed to take off rather than three (assuming I do not work on Saturday Sunday anyway).

As for the authorities squeezing more cricket into the extra days, well the whole thing is a hypothetical excercise to reform, which would be impossible in any case if the same guys ran the game the same way anyway.

Scheduling will come as yet another proposal. Have patience. I am rushing them through for this reason.

I spose the availability isn't yet an issue for me being a student. I can really go to the cricket whenever I please.

 

[SJS]

Just to deviate a bit

Proposal # 6: Play specialist wicket keepers only to keep wickets

Let the teams play 12 players one of which would be a specialist wicket keeper who would do nothing but keep wickets. This will allow them to play an extra specialist bowler (or batsman) as the case may be and the specialist keeper will not become a dying species as has been the case for a long time now.

We want the keeper to be more than a slip wearing gloves. Lets have the best keepers compete for the job, be paid equally and be able to rest after the most tiring job in the game is over (except in the unavoidable case of a follow on).

 

[SJS]

2 balls an over, you'd get 270 overs in a day.

You could do better. Bowl two overs from each end at a time

Lee and Clarke from either end or Lee and Clarke from one end and Lee and Mitchell Johnson from the other and so on !!

The field changing will be much less, It wil be as much or less than the change for a left to a right handed batsman.

And you have half the number of change of ends as in a 90 over (six ball) system !!

 

[Athlai]

Just to deviate a bit

Proposal # 6: Play specialist wicket keepers only to keep wickets

Let the teams play 12 players one of which would be a specialist wicket keeper who would do nothing but keep wickets. This will allow them to play an extra specialist bowler (or batsman) as the case may be and the specialist keeper will not become a dying species as has been the case for a long time now.

We want the keeper to be more than a slip wearing gloves. Lets have the best keepers compete for the job, be paid equally and be able to rest after the most tiring job in the game is over (except in the unavoidable case of a follow on).

Would be disappointing to see the line of great wicket-keeper batsman ended though.

 

[SJS]

Would be disappointing to see the line of great wicket-keeper batsman ended though.

This is not to end but to revive great wicket keeping.

The death knell of great wicket keeping was sounded when Keith Andrews, one of the truly great wicket keepers and the inspiration for the incomparable Bob Taylor, was played in one Test match in 1954 and his second, also his last, nine years later in 1963.

The final nail in the coffin was hammered in when Bairstow(4 Tests and 21 odi's) and Downton(30 Tests) were preferred to the great Bob Taylor considered by many as the greatest but without argument one of the greatest wicket keepers the game has seen.

 

[Athlai]

I haven't the faintest what one of these wicket keepers would have been like. Just the fact that a guy like McCullum can pull off amazing catches and only one the rarest occasion drop something is basically the pinnacle of a guy with the gloves for mine. I can't see how they could benefit the team much more.

 

[SJS]

I haven't the faintest what one of these wicket keepers would have been like. Just the fact that a guy like McCullum can pull off amazing catches and only one the rarest occasion drop something is basically the pinnacle of a guy with the gloves for mine. I can't see how they could benefit the team much more.

Its a long one, the reply to that.

 

[Athlai]

Its a long one, the reply to that.

I'd be happy to read it.

 

[SJS]

Lest put it this way, suppose every country in the world decided that s[in bowling wasnt such a great thing so as to sacrifice a whole place in a side of 11 players for it and every one decided to make do with batsmen who could bowler slow stuff with the older ball. In twenty years time you will find youngsters will stop taking up spin bowling as a specialist job (its already happening in some countries) then when the older bowlers have become a memory of your grand parents, the slow trundlers you have will appear as good as anything you know. PLUS they can bat. WOW. What could those older guys do that these guys cant, you may well ask. Maybe they had wickets that helped them but now the wickets have become truer. The Warnes, and Muralis of the 1990's would have struggled on our wickets of the 2060's.

There iust no way I will exchange my Virender Sehwag (Marc 2060), who can score Test triple hundreds besides, with some Muralitharan who needed doctored wickets and home advantage to get his wickets.

 

[Athlai]

Yet a wicketkeepers job is not the same as a bowlers, he himself cannot force wickets only take the chances that are given to him.

 

[SJS]

I'd be happy to read it.

I have replied in an oblique way because I did not read your last post "I'd be happy to read it.
"
Hope it will suffice.

Keeping is much more than standing back and diving ,goal keeper style, to pouch catches in front of slips. I am not saying great keepers do not exist but their numbers are dwindling and you see them with much greater gaps between them.

 

[Athlai]

I suppose it is coming to a fold where in many places the batting is far more important than the keeping (Prior) as opposed to equally important (Gilchrist, McCullum, Boucher). How many young players out there genuinely focus on their keeping more than their batting? Or even the same amount of focus.

 

[SJS]

Yet a wicketkeepers job is not the same as a bowlers, he himself cannot force wickets only take the chances that are given to him.

You will be amazed at how many chances are there to get a batsman as he just loses balance momentarily when he drives, which cant be picked up if you are standing back. The catches which the keeper dives and takes up may still be taken by a slip fielder but those stumpings cant be taken by anyone else.

When you stand back you rely on your movement and agility to take the catch and have the time to see it and dive, when you stand up, you rely purely on great technique which ensures that your hands and body are in the right place to take each and every ball, whether off the fine edge or untouched. The only thing you are at a disadvantage to take is the thicker edge with the resultant bigger deviation. It is this that is expected to go wider and it is for this that you would place slips (not always I agree).

The finer edges also, at times could be dropping quickly, in which case standing up you have a better chance of getting them in your glove before they do.

Its a trade off, standing up or standing back. The great keepers of the past, stood up to the medium pacers and at times even the fast medium bowlers standing up but when they bowled the really fast stuff, they did stand back. The important thing is for a keeper to have all the skills not just of standing back and diving to take the snicks. As someone famously said, the wicket keeper is now nothing more than a slip with gloves on. Even if only partly true, it is a fair commentary on the direction wicket keeping has taken.

I have being o academies and seen what is being coached, Its shocking. Young keepers are standing back to almost everything except spinners. This wasnt the case even in club cricket when I was playing.

 

[SJS]

I suppose it is coming to a fold where in many places the batting is far more important than the keeping (Prior) as opposed to equally important (Gilchrist, McCullum, Boucher). How many young players out there genuinely focus on their keeping more than their batting? Or even the same amount of focus.

You are right. They dont and thats sad. But you cant blame them.

When Parthiv Patel's keeping is letting him down, he is trying to get back into the side on the strength of big scores as a batsman. This is a mockery and a poor commentary on how the role of a wicket keeper is being marginalised.