Impact of ICC rule changes

A few weeks ago, the ICC framed new rules for the game. Some of the new rules were long pending. Some were even understood and applied without the legitimacy of the ICC ink. But some were, lets just say, strange.

I know that a lot of focus has gone towards the use of runners by batsmen. Perhaps rightly so. Just because it is difficult to independently and impartially assess the fitness of a batsman, you cannot arbitrarily ban runners. If a facility is being misused then the easiest solution is to withdraw the facility. The tougher option is to tighten things up and have a fool proof solution. The ICC appears to have gone for the easier option. Why, pray, can we not have an independent physio sitting on-call to determine the extent of the injury of the batsmen? If it is a cramp, then no runners need be allowed. If it is a serious injury that hampers his running, then by all means allow that!

However the more interesting rule change from a pure cricketing point of view - and hence pretty uninteresting for the media hounds - is the introduction of two new balls from each end in the ODI game. Now, I don’t know which expert(s) the ICC is relying on to determine that the ODI game needs a special dose of adrenaline and other such invigorating items to extend its shelf life. Fact is - the recent World Cup was extremely well watched and well covered. No panic buttons need be pushed.

The only people who would welcome this rule would be the batsmen! Is that not ironic? The ball will keep coming onto the bat and the pace of run scoring is probably going to be dramatic. 400-run innings are probably not going to be exotic anymore!

And what about the long suffering tribe of spin bowlers? They practically have no say now! We will now get to see more of the Ashwin-type of bowlers who specialise in bowling with the new ball. Not that there is anything wrong with Ashwin. But the traditional virtues of spin bowling - the wiles and guiles are probably going to be conspicuous by their absence. And all this because the technology is not currently there to make a white ball last for greater than 30-odd overs! The mind boggles.

Now onto the subject which has had cricket lovers in thrall in recent times - the DRS! For a long time, this writer has maintained that the DRS is welcome. The game of cricket definitely needs it. But there is definitely large scale misunderstanding of what construes the DRS. Because ball tracking systems such as Hawk-Eye bring about a huge load of spectator involvement, many people tend to equate such technology with the entire spectrum and scope of DRS. The ICC has quite rightly ruled that the ball tracking systems are not there where they need to be and hence made the implementation of such systems optional. It would have been even better had the ruling said that ball-tracking systems will be put to rigorous and publicised testing in domestic events and a path be drawn to chart out the possible implementation of such systems at the senior level when all the kinks have been worked out.

Nevertheless there is still reason to cheer for the ICC - at least on this count. It is going to be interesting to see how many countries claim that they can afford systems such as Hot Spot. But this is most definitely a step in the right direction.