Will changed rules help Cricket …?

Its all happening .. The ICC Chief Executive Committee approved the recommendations made by ICC’s Cricket Committe to bring new innovations to the quicker form of Cricket .. The One Day International (ODI) will now have different format of fielding restrictions and there is a new feature of player substitution in the approved changes ..

A Brief Summation of changes :

  • 12 Players now:
          The teams will be selected with 12 players instead of 11 players previously. One substitution can be made at any time of the match and any player could be replaced with another. The replaced player will be ruled out of the game and the new player will take his responsibilities .. This will change the whole course of the game .. Now India can bowl with Zaheer Khan and then replace him with Sachin in the batting inning .. along with having and extra player ..
  • Field Restrictions increased:
          The fielding restrictions will now be of 20 overs instead of 15 overs previously .. It will be applied in three slots: The first 10 overs will be mandatory plus two additional slots of five overs each which will be decided by the fielding captain on when to apply them ..
  • The specifications of the Cricket Bat:
          The ICC will create an expert panel group to work with Cricket bat manufacturers to review the existing rules governing manufacturer of cricket bats …


So whats the big deal ..?

      Umm.. This is the whole point of my post… How is it going to affect the cricket viewership ..? In my opinion positively .. ! .. How ? Here it goes ..

      The introduction of One day cricket was the best thing that happened to Cricket.. The ODIs brought thrill and edge to the cricket .. There is famous story about an American watching cricket.. He watched the test for full 5 days and after when it was over he asked guy sitting next to him .. Hey how was the game ? The guy said Great match .. great cricket played .. The American then asked who won ? The guy said nobody .. the match drawn .. The American said What ?!?! .. They played for 5 days and nobody won ..!! . .. So they never play cricket in America .. πŸ˜€ .. Anyways .. I got drifted .. πŸ˜› .. Back to the point now ..

      What Cricket loses to Football is due to the time taken for a match. Even being shortened to ODIs, the game still takes around 9 10 hours for a complete match .. Leaving aside die hard fans who has so much time to watch the game ..? And most of the people who watch on the TV watch the first fifteen and last ten overs of an inning .. So what to do to make the game more interesting ..? When you aren’t going to reduce the numbers of overs, you should make the whole fifty overs more interesting .. and that is was ICC has tried to do .. the new features if properly implemented will make this happen…

      So .. Cricket is gradually transforming from a game of chance to a game of strategy .. The new rules will make the captain of the team more responsible as one wrong move can cause catastrophe .. It will be a test of the captain on how he makes a gameplan and how he implement them .. The thinking game will determine when he chooses to implement the two slots of fielding restrictions and nature of substitutions .. Overall it will make the game more interesting πŸ™‚ ..

Is Cricket slowly becoming a batsmen’s game ..?

      All the members of the CEC were former batsman .. So when deciding new features they forgot bowler’s pleas .. All the new variations are beneficial to batsmen and make the game more difficult for the bowlers .. The format of Twenty20 matches also give emphasis on hitting sixes and making more runs in an over .. So gradually cricket is drifting towards batsman favorism … Like the batsman can play the inning for whole 50 overs but a bowler has only 10 overs in his hands .. There shouldve been some introductions like giving a bonus over to a bowler who is performing good .. like taking three wickets in an inning will give him more overs to bowl .. And like the batsman who can choose what bat to play with, the bowlers should also get the option of which bowl to play with .. This will make cricket more balanced ..

So … The NatWest series will see these changes into place .. The first match is on 7th July and lets see how it goes .. !

One thought on “Will changed rules help Cricket …?”

  1. Hey just wanted to thank you for a such a great blog ..keep it up

    Thanking You
    Alicia Allen

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