Time for Cricket 2.0

From Aditya, United States
Cricket is a great game, but it spends too much time dotting the i's and crossing the t's, as it were. Too many things which should be non-issues and where common-sense should prevail are becoming major events these days and preventing the public from truly enjoying the game. Over-rates, for one. Why the hell is it so hard to get 15 overs bowled in an hour? I've seen club teams do 17. I've seen first-class teams do it too. In my opinion fines are not enough.

Irrespective of the form of cricket, we need a clock like in soccer or basketball. There should be a certain amount of allowed "injury time" like in soccer. And the clock should stop for unforeseen delays or delays caused by the batting side. The clock refreshes after every hour. And if 15 overs are not bowled in that hour, the main bowler of the bowling team should not be allowed to bowl the rest of the innings or even better, the number of overs a team is short by should be multiplied by one more than the current run-rate of the batting side and those runs should be added to the batting side's score.

Also, umpires must be allowed to make a judgement before the start of play about whether they think play will last the full day. This should be done in conjunction with local officials and weather-people. There's no point going on like nothing has happened then all of a sudden whipping out light meters. That doesn't make the slightest of sense and literally casts a poor light on the professionalism of the game.

Further, cricket should be about maximizing resources: if there are lights installed at a stadium, they must be used at any cost if needed, irrespective of what the captains agreed to do. (This will prevent farces of the kind that happened in Kanpur recently). And the ICC must also scrap the rule that you need at least a one-hour delay to be able to shorten a lunch-break. The lunch-break should be shortened to 20 minutes in my opinion anyway. Similar rules are also needed in Test cricket. Why is the morning break shorter than the afternoon break? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. They should be equal and absolutely symmetric.

There are a lot more things cricket needs to implement to make sure that focus is kept on cricket. Instead of referring close boundary balls to the third umpire, what cricket needs is linesmen standing close to the boundary. They should easily be able to tell. And calling front-foot no-balls should not be the prerogative of the field umpire. They should be concentrating on caught-behinds and lbws. No-balls should be called by the third umpire - institute the free hit in Test cricket too, so that the batsman can take advantage of it.

Also, if the field umpire makes a blatantly wrong decision, the third umpire must be allowed to overturn it immediately. All this talk about "cricket is a great leveller" or "it's like life, you take the rough with the smooth" is more suitable for enthusiasts who're locked in the Victorian age in my opinion. I'm a modern fan and I want to see the game be played properly, and the right decision to be taken no matter what. It seems almost farcical to not maximize the available resources in order to preserve some "time-honoured" traditions...I for one am not for tradition.

If people think the review system takes time, a good idea may be for the field umpire to have some kind of miniature hand-held screen which relays videos from the third umpire of the current delivery, so that he can have a look again (possibly with Hawkeye assistance for lbws) to be absolutely sure he has made the right decision. Of course, there should be a time-limit to that too. I mean if people can use iPhones how hard is this to implement? Also, sightscreen delays: I think they are really uncalled for. I think all stadiums should have a huge fence or wall of some kind built around the back and sides of the sightscreen.

Last but not the least: The umpires themselves. Not the umpiring, but umpires. First of all they should dress for the weather. It's stupid to see someone in dark trousers and a dark shirt umpiring in searing heat in the subcontinent. He's an umpire, not a business executive or something. What's more, that means that he is not in a relaxed frame of mind and affects his decision-making. Soccer referee wear is fine with me. Also, please, umpires, stop ambling around the field to get things done. Life moves quickly, so should you and the game. It takes an eternity to get those light readings done and it doesn't help when you walk like you're in the park for God's sake. Walk faster, and get on with it.