Double the fun

After a few days of purported “cricket” squelched by what is reportedly the wettest British June on record, with its deeply unsatisfying array of fast-forwarded Twelve12, Ten10 and even Five5 farces, how heartening to see one reader, Michael Fernando, chiming with my fervent belief that the game’s latest golden goose needs surgery of the back-to-basics variety.

Ten years ago next month, on July 21, 1997, 5,343 spectators at Old Trafford witnessed the future of abridged cricket. In the first floodlit 11-a-side county match, a strictly experimental affair, Lancashire and Yorkshire decided to split their 50-over affair into quarters – alternate chunks of 25 overs – so that both teams would bat in daylight as well as under lights.

The half-time score was eerily well-poised, almost suspiciously so – Lancashire 122-2, Yorkshire 122-3. The hosts failed to double their tally, mooring at 239-8, yet it was enough to secure victory by 13 runs as the visiting batsmen’s unfamiliarity with the conditions told. The tension was taut to the end – precisely what limited-overs contests should be but so seldom are. Unfortunately, however enterprising cricket has proved by comparison with every other sport you could mention, the gauntlet was left on the floor.

The main drawback with the instant success of Twenty20 in the summer of 2003 was that it blinded the England and Wales Cricket Board to the possibilities proffered in Manchester. Admittedly, the sense that the 50-over variant sorely needed reinvention – and powerplays and substitutes would ultimately prove about as radical and useful as giving a leopard bigger spots – had yet to become as glaringly obvious as it is now. The excitement generated by Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitherana’s thunderous opening alliances at the previous year’s World Cup had bought the format a few years’ breathing space.

As the pendulum swung ever further towards the batsmen, on the dubious and rather patronising premise that tomorrow’s audience could only be ensnared by an endless succession of sixes and fours, the impermanence of the 50-over game’s revival became ever more blatant. Since 1996, each World Cup has managed to outstrip its predecessor when it comes to generating apathy. That the ICC recognises as much can be gleaned from the rather unseemly haste to launch a Twenty20 World Cup.

But that doesn’t mean the panacea is beyond reproach. Nor even that the 50-over game should necessarily die. As it stands, the senior one-day form falls short in the most critical department: in the vast majority of cases, it deprives us of drama. By 1) belatedly getting shot of any restrictions on how many overs a bowler is permitted and 2) quartering games along the lines of that Old Trafford experiment (which was repeated spasmodically elsewhere before withering on the vine), or even allowing both teams two separate 25-over innings, there is a chance that the missing ingredient can be relocated.

In all likelihood, though, the 50-over format will be thanked for its services and given its gold watch, leaving Twenty20 to become the staple diet. In which case Mr Speed and his chums should instigate a major revamp. If the almighty US cultural dollar is valued as much as it seems to be, they could always go the whole hog and trim XIs to Xs and have nine alternate innings per side a la baseball, each expiring with the fall of a wicket. If, on the other hand, they want to restore the primacy of cricketing principles, so many of which have been consigned to the sacrificial bonfire, why not revert to two distinct innings per side?

This is also what Mr Fernando prescribes, along with the abolition of Duckworth-Lewis calculations in games of such brevity, thus preventing any more of these Ten10 or Five5 fiascos. You could even introduce a facility – let’s call it, oh, I don’t know, the “follow-on” – whereby, if the team batting second trails by, say, 50 runs, they could be asked to bat again straightaway. Team A might score 122-3 off their first 10, whereupon Team B limp to 54-6, then “follow-on” and rack up 134-6, leaving Team A chasing 67. The possibilities, if not endless, should certainly be pretty extensive. And it could still all be done and dusted inside three hours.

This is a rare opportunity – make that a unique one – for the game to profit by turning back the clock. It is also no job for the hesitant.