Chris Gayle’s fast and furious 217 innings the other day may be a world of wonder but 300 plus team totals have gone from being special to humdrum to even mundane in this World Cup, what with batsmen becoming audacious with attacks.
India scored 300 plus in both its matches against Pakistan and South Africa and won on the strength of this build-up. Australia started off with the inaugural at MCG against England. South Africa did it, despite being 83-4 at one stage against Zimbabwe and so did West Indies, New Zealand and Sri lanka.
Six teams posting scores of 300 plus in the first lot of matches, that’s more than the entire span of seven previous WCs could manage, including those three World Cups when it used to be a 60 over game!
This batting burst can be blamed for what many have started calling “the advent of zombie bowling” and questioning whether bowlers should at all be thrown into conditions that can only spell disdain for them. That this is happening on pitches that have been earlier feared for their bounce, swing and pace is also surprising though Michael Bevan has suggested that it could be the case of drop-in pitches turning flat.
World Cup ambassador Sachin Tendulkar says the reasons are two and pretty obvious. “We’ve been witnessing high-scoring games because of two reasons. One is because the rule has changed. There is one less fielder outside the circle. That makes a huge difference. The game opens up completely and it becomes difficult for bowlers to consistently find those areas to work because there is one less fielder which forces you to bowl different lengths and different lines,” he explained on ICC’s official World Cup website.
“The second point is also the introduction of T20 format, which has allowed the batters to play more risky, innovative shots, and they regularly practice these shots in the nets,” the little master said.
“How many times in the 1980s or the 1990s did you see someone playing a reverse sweep off a fast bowlerIJ It happens now. If batsmen have to chase at eight runs an over, it’s not something beyond their reach, because in T20 you play 20 overs with asking run-rate sometimes of nine or even more. So it’s just the mental set-up and the belief that even if it goes to nine runs and over, we can still hit that target,” Tendulkar explained.
Michael Hussey agrees but feels that the need for entertainment on live TV is the reason for over the top scoring. “Fans, broadcasters and administrators want to see excitement. They want to see fours and sixes being hit. They don’t want to see batsmen struggling and dot balls, plays and misses and things like that. I’m sure they’d love to see the wickets, but maybe the balance has gone too far,” he said during a net session of South Africa.
As far as rules go, the introduction of two new balls per innings has also led to a run rush, coupled as it is with extra fielding restrictions. But more than anything else it is the change in the mind-set of the young cricketers, like Kohli, Finch and Corey Anderson who are all about T20 here and now kind of aggression with the bat, some using sheer muscle power, others grace and yet others, like Kohli, textbook correctness.
In 1992, Wasim Akram whose team lifted the World Cup trophy that year in Australia, took 18 wickets. He says he could do so because of his high fitness level. Batsmen will bat and score more and more runs. It is for the bowlers to be fit and exact in their bowling spells to counter this edge that the modern game has given to the willow. His adviceIJ Bowl just short of a good length and also vary the pace which, something that the Indian quicks did to perfection against the South Africans.
India won the 1983 World Cup on a mere 183 score. By the early 21st century, a 250-270 score was considered handsome and by 2015 even a “mere 300” has become achievable, something that India feared after posting 307 against the South Africans.
Where this will stop, or if at all it should, is a debate hanging fire depending on whether you are a lay spectator, an administrator wanting the money to put back into the sport or a broadcaster who rules the roost in cricket today.