Spare a thought for the bowlers

A game already loaded heavily in favour of the batsmen threatens to get further lopsided if the ICC Cricket Committee's recommendations for one-day cricket are adopted by the ICC chief executives in June. After their two-day meeting in Dubai, the committee made several recommendations, of which the ones relevant to this argument are listed below:

The first of these recommendations offers a concession to the fielding team - as is the suggestion to push back the boundary ropes - but those are more than offset by the three other ideas. Increasing the period of fielding restrictions from 15 to 20 overs was already a blow to the bowlers, and especially to spinners; to make it worse, the batsmen might now have a say on when to call in the field to allow them an even bigger bash. So, if Daniel Vettori and Scott Styris have managed to rein in the run-rate after 15 frenetic overs to the Australian openers, Ricky Ponting only needs to exercise his Powerplay option to turn around the momentum again. An even better strategy - and one which could come in especially handy when chasing a target - is for teams to keep wickets in hand and use that Powerplay option for the last five overs of their innings. Bowling to the modern-day hitters like Andrew Symonds, Abdul Razzaq and Shahid Afridi is bad enough with five fielders manning the boundaries; with three, it will be a veritable nightmare.

If that isn't bad enough, it has also been suggested that one-day internationals follow the Twenty20 route by offering a free hit to the batsmen after every front-foot no-ball. The artificiality of this rule reveals the desperation - and the dearth of concrete ideas - among the powers that be to bring back interest in the game; ironically, it might end up achieving the opposite. Worse, for the hapless bowler who has already been penalised for his infringement of overstepping, this amounts to double jeopardy. And once they've adopted this route, it's easy to imagine further gimmicks being introduced - what, for instance, stops the committee from suggesting two free hits after every no-ball?

The compulsory ball change after 35 overs has more logic to it - it's obviously come about due to the often farcical scenes of batsmen insisting they can't spot the ball the moment it starts to reverse swing. By making it a law, though, the aspect of reverse swing might become a considerably diminished part of a one-day game.

Most of these changes would still be acceptable if they were counterbalanced by offering similar encouragement to the bowlers. Why not, for instance, increase the limit for one bowler to 15 overs, or two bowlers to 12 each? Or use two balls - one from each end - as was briefly tried in Australia in 1984-85 and the 1992 World Cup? Interest in one-day cricket will revive if there is a more even contest - and of a greater quality - between bat and ball. Allowing a Brett Lee or a Muttiah Muralitharan more number of overs will automatically enhance the quality of the contest and make the runs scored more meaningful than the dreary milking of mediocre bowlers that has become the norm of ODIs today.

The pitches and conditions have already been tailored to allow a run-fest; the implementation of these recommendations suggested by the ICC Cricket Committee will only skew the balance even more in favour of the batsmen. If the aim is to help teams achieve the 450-run target (or more), these ideas might help; if the aim to make one-day cricket more compelling, though, it's highly doubtful if these moves will come anywhere close to achieving the goal.