Cricket: Should the pitch be scrapped?

Although the practice of tossing the coin before a test match of cricket by the two captains is as old as the game, in recent times we have seen a large number of cases where the winning team from the toss puts the team underdog at clear handicaps, including a negative evolution mentality In some cricket-playing nations such as England, Australia, the West Indies and New Zealand, where the focus is on preparing fast bowlers, grass pitches and pitches are prepared , once the host team wins the toss in a one day game, they put the opposition up to bat, especially if the morning is cloudy beyond cool damp on the pitch, and obviously the visiting team suffers nothing from their fault or their weaknesses. The opposite of this is true in countries, particularly India or Sri Lanka, where the focus is always on the spinning wheels, slower flat pitches are set up without grass, and the team that wins the pitch naturally wins first, because in most cases the throwing begins to become dangerously from the 3rd or 4th day; the grotesquely changing fields in India are undoubtedly in some decline after the advent of the shorter-format Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2009 for obvious reasons. Even in the case of the IPL, the losing teams are at a disadvantage, because the winning teams always prefer to chase and as seen in India, anything over 300 can also be successfully chased on the flat batting lanes.

This explains why India has been losing most away series in recent decades and winning most home series, of course only in recent years, due to more thought and effort being put into preparing players. of faster bowling. In the 1970s and 1980s in the home Test series, we had witnessed the unique spectacle of seeing one or two medium-fast bowlers in the Indian eleven bowling only one or two overs at the start of the fourth innings even with the Sunil living legend. Gavaskar would sometimes come in to bowl the first overs and always hit the ball hard into the ground so that the famous spinners could take control as soon as possible. Such a scenario has been dying out since the late 1990s; however, the casting handicap remains as usual, across all game formats.

Day-night games, introduced for express business purposes, the draw handicap scenario becomes more serious. As the fall season, the traditional cricket season, begins until winter, dew forms later in the evening. Every cricketer/commentator/cricket lover knows very well that the spray makes the ball slippery which makes it very difficult for bowlers, both pacing and spin bowlers, to get a good grip on the ball and direct their trajectory as the players would like. Therefore, the winning team of the toss always faces the opposition to win first, as seen most ominously at the 2021 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Of the IPL-2021 matches shifted to the UAE midway, we had seen the slow bowls there making it difficult to bat in the first innings and difficult to bowl in the second innings, invariably favoring the winning and chasing teams. of shots, particularly if the match involved two top-tier competitive teams and not the weaker teams or minnows as opposition, with most matches ending with low scores and often one-sided.

Many disappointed fans from India, also from South Africa, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, would have loved to see what their teams could have done had they won the toss and chased in those crucially important matches which they lost perhaps due to, to some extent significant, the loss of the draw. Since it involved India, a team from the world’s richest cricket board and their strategic global business interests, the hubbub over the ‘launch’ is getting louder and nastier. However, as we have illustrated above, the draw affects the matches and hurts the losing teams, more so if they are close to equal according to the International Cricket Council (ICC) indices and rankings. Now, we will see if the release can be completely or at least partially removed.

Strangely removing the draw would be the easiest option in the IPL itself regardless of my opinion or yours on its usefulness because the tournament involves 8-10 teams where each team plays twice each on a double all basis. against everyone; in an 8-franchise IPL, each team plays 14 matches in total at the league stage. Therefore, in the league stage, a competing team should be allowed to choose to field or bat in the first game and the same option for the opposing team in the second game and so on. In the elimination round, the choice can be given based on the respective net run rates of the two rivals. We have argued many times before that the ICC should adopt a similar format ideally with a double robin where the Super-12 would be just one group like in IPL and each team would play each other at least twice. Therefore, the launch can be ruled out as we have shown. In fact, this standard should be adopted in all ICC tournaments in all formats.

Also in the Test series that we started this piece with, release removal is entirely possible. For example, let’s take a five match test series between India and let’s say England host either country; Either India or England should be allowed to choose to bat or bowl first in the first match, followed by India having the choice in the second and up to the fourth game. In the fifth and final Test, which can be the decider in some cases, the team with the best ICC ranking should have the option to choose. In Test series of 2 or 6 games there is no problem. This can work very well for all bilateral and international ODI (One Day International) and Test tournaments. And of course for both men’s and women’s cricket.

Throwing away the practice of pitching would pave the way for more equal matches in the glorious game of gentlemen’s (also ladies’) cricket. This would never put any team at a disadvantage that they can’t do anything about. This is to make all the teams equal in terms of choice, and definitely not performances, which is the game of cricket on the field based on the application, dedication and calm of mind shown by the players. Countries have long been trying to put an end to the stark inequalities present in both developed and underdeveloped countries and to eradicate poverty. So why not try the same in the most popular and expanding game of cricket to end the inequalities created by the toss of a single coin? Why not let the currency do what it is really supposed to do?