M Nicholas: Super Max brings summer game to a lost generation (15 Jun 1998)

15 June 1998

Super Max brings summer game to a lost generation

By Mark Nicholas

AT LORD'S on Tuesday of last week the two finest Australasian batsmen of their time - indeed, two of the finest of any time - gave an imposing and passionate presentation on the new cricket which they believe will revitalise the game's importance in the priorities of today's young people.

Martin Crowe, who invented Cricket Max, and Allan Border, who has played and represented Super Eights, are as one with this new brand which combines the best of both and which is rechristened Super Max Cricket. On behalf of the Australian Cricket Board and New Zealand Cricket, they spoke to the International Cricket Council's development committee and moved them in such a way that some in the room were keen to rubber-stamp it there and then. Unsurprisingly, reservation and reflection countered the immediate enthusiasm, but by today the decision will have been taken and unless the ICC have gone potty, the merger of Cricket Max and Super Eights must surely have been given the go-ahead.

Between them, the ACB and NZC have come up with "the third generation of cricket" - as they like to call it - a game which understands the impatient and fast-moving age and provides players and spectators with a short and essentially simple version of cricket.

The game is a result of the two boards' determination to create something new for clubs and schools (most especially, in secondary and state schools); something with which the third world of cricket can identify and possibly afford; a game which at first-class level appeals to audiences who have less time to watch live sport than ever before; and to television.

Crowe was in England last year promoting Cricket Max. This column wrote then of the urgent need to identify a new product which reflected modern preferences. If we are brutal in analysis, a game which, at the highest level, takes five days to complete and is then often drawn, a game for which you might give up an afternoon but bat for just one ball, a game in which the higher percentage of the team will not bowl at all, a game in which your own team-mate can run you out and in which a dropped catch can mean instant loss of friendship is not a game to appeal to kids who are raised with word processors at their side and, right now, with football's World Cup all over their television. Something had to counter rival sports and recreation and Max is it.

A game of Super Max cricket, two innings per side, lasts for three hours and its abbreviated form, subtitled Super Max Eights, is a one-innings game that lasts for 1.5 hours. Each innings consists of 10 six-ball overs and five bowlers must bowl. If the ball is hit into the Max zone, which is a large area 20 metres deep by 40 metres wide at its point nearest the play and 60 metres wide at the boundary, runs are doubled. Fielders may not start in the Max zone but they may move into it to retrieve the ball or to catch it. In Crowe's original Cricket Max, you could not be caught out in the Max zone but if the catch was held, the runs would not be doubled. The ICC were not keen on this because it disturbed an inherent part of cricket and so in Super Max, you can be caught out in the Max zone.

The positioning of the Max zone, directly behind the bowler, is the game's greatest fascination as it encourages straight hitting and adds a dimension to the tactics and psychology of the game. Best of all, it creates tension by encouraging unlikely comebacks and close finishes. Fifty per cent of all Max matches played so far at first-class level (in New Zealand for the last two years and by an England touring team last November) have gone to the last over; 20 per cent have gone to the final ball.

There are other innovations and rule changes from one-day cricket as we know it but my favourite of all is the no-ball rule, which is the strongest deterrent yet. As before, a batsman cannot be dismissed off a no-ball but now he cannot be dismissed off the next one either, which creates a myriad of options and a certain panic. The crowd anticipates the outcome of the 'free hit', the bowlers focus on evening up a one-sided moment and the batsman flexes his muscles. It is extraordinary how often the utterly committed and concentrating bowler wins the day.

THERE is an idea that Max may be too good a concept and if children are brought up to know only it, they may not appreciate the subtleties of the senior game. Border disagrees: "I am truly a traditionalist and will always regard Test cricket as the ultimate but I am convinced that cricket needs a third-generation game and that the two will not obstruct each other. Our aim is to introduce many more young people to the enjoyment and values of cricket rather than to lose them to other attractions."

Crowe, every bit as much a traditionalist as Border, believes Super Max to be the logical and responsible way forward. The cricket world would be wise to follow his lead. NZC and the ACB have invested two years and 3 million Australian dollars (£1.1 million) in the game and now the ICC have it on a plate.

They must grasp its nettle, as must England, or another generation will pass us by. The 12 county and international players who played a series of three internationals in New Zealand last winter thought it stimulating and demanding; youngsters who play it think it enormous fun. Those words as a recommendation will do nicely.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)