Proposals to radically change Test Cricket

[Manee]

Proposal # 3 : Day Night Test Matches.

I like this idea and am quite surprised that it has not been the subject of some ICC meetings. Under lights, this session could bring a lot of wickets and could be a fan favourite. I would be in favour of making this session the main attraction for the fans; with players possibly changing to coloured kits and the ball changing colour imbetween the evening and night sessions.

Proposal Number 4 : Fix 85 meters as the minimum boundary (in all directions) for all Test centres

Simple but useful. Of course, it could be 80m if 85m cuts off too many grounds, but the sentiment is right

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.

Not been in favour of the eight ball problem; it opposes the six ball over, which is not directly enough an issue.

Proposal # 7 - LBW Law. Remove the bit in the law that requires the batsman to be hit within the stump line (point of contact) for a ball coming in from outside the off stump to be declared leg before. Let him be out if the ball is pitching on the stumps or to the off side of it and if the umpire feels it was going to hit the stumps if not stopped by the batsman's person, irrespective of whether or not he was offering a stroke.

Why should a batsman who has misjudged where the ball was going to finally end up be treated differently from another batsman who played and missed at the same delivery?

The fact is that both did not get a bat to the ball and both would have been bowled if there bodies had not stopped the ball before that.

It will tilt the scales a bit in favour of the bowler. Will encourage bowlers to pitch outside the off stump and cultivate off spin or off cutters of in-swing.

Batsmen will, hopefully improve their skills to counter it and in any event more efforts will be made to play the ball.

The 'outside off stump' rule has always baffled me and it is time that they need to take it out. Hopefully, the removal of the outside off stump rule will bring back the conservative nature of umpires to give LBW decisions which are far too difficult to accurately call - but of course, it could work the other way too.

Proposal # 7 : Bring back leg-theory. Allow more fielders behind square but if they are going to be more than two. do not allow more than one outside the 30 yard circle. This will allow bowlers to attack the batsmen on the leg side but with just one fielder in the deep, a batsman who can hook will have the opportunity to score runs.

With the bats as they are, the batsmen should, if they can hook, get plenty of runs if just one man is in the deep on the leg side.

Let the umpires be the judge for negative cricket as they are even today, if it is used by the fielding side only to prevent the batsman from playing as was done by Nasser and Giles.

Ooo, not sure about that. Pitches around the world do occasionally become very dangerous and I can see leg theory from quick bowleres becoming the norm to force results. Repetitiveness is what we are trying to avoid in changing Test cricket and this will unfortunately create more.

 

[Srowls_155]

To be honest that would be contridicting the tradition of cricket which makes it what it is today, six ball overs have always been bowled from the first game of cricket.
I think that you would struggle to get that one around the MCC but it would definately speed up the game.
One other thing to do with tradition would be instead of the maximum being 36 (six sixes) it would be 48 (eight sixes) making the club of Sobers and Gibbs even more difficult to get into.

 

[SJS]

To be honest that would be contridicting the tradition of cricket which makes it what it is today, six ball overs have always been bowled from the first game of cricket.
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Where do you get your cricketing news from ?

 

[Indipper]

Personally I don't like the idea of the standardized boundary length. From there it's not far to rules on how long a pitch must be watered before the match. So that every Test pitch will conform to the same standards.

 

[honestbharani]

like ur LBW rule change idea the most, SJS..


The other stuff are a little meh.... I don think Test Cricket is in that bad a shape.. Juz have more bowler friendly, or at the very least, more result friendly wickets and that should be good enough. And make all tours 3 test series and take out Zim and Bang for a while.. It should be good enough for me.....

 

[andruid]

Personally I don't like the idea of the standardized boundary length. From there it's not far to rules on how long a pitch must be watered before the match. So that every Test pitch will conform to the same standards.

Variations in pitch conditions and outfield should be preserved no end. Although standards need to be set for some things like Boundary length

 

[Indipper]

Variations in pitch conditions and outfield should be preserved no end. Although standards need to be set for some things like Boundary length

Nah. Would be tough on Adelaide and such. Besides I subscribe to the view that everything should be a little different everywhere, that's what makes the game so rich.

 

[andruid]

Nah. Would be tough on Adelaide and such. Besides I subscribe to the view that everything should be a little different everywhere, that's what makes the game so rich.

If a ground is above the regulations all the better what we don't want is childen's ball parks passing off as Test grounds