Time for four-innings one-dayers

The Champions Trophy, played on early season pitches on the South African Highveld, has thrown up enough variety worthy of a global competition. It’s had enough intrigue and diversity to suit just about every style of cricketer. No team can claim they were significantly disadvantaged by the conditions, although the toss was crucial in some of the earlier matches. That’s cricket though – how can you ever compensate for the vagaries of the toss?

In long series between two countries (or even tri-series), it is probably fair enough to leave things as they are. Going by the law of averages, the coin toss tends to even out in the long run and the better team usually wins the series. Most sensible people will agree that the longer the competition, the better the chances are that the most deserving team will triumph.

Shorter tournaments like World Cups and Champions Trophies necessarily allow for much less margin in terms of this balancing-out effect. Especially in cut-throat situations where one loss can finish your tournament, the toss is often crucial. Too crucial. In some of the early games at Centurion and Johannesburg, where extravagant spin and seam were in equal abundance, the toss effectively determined the outcome.

Perhaps it’s worth giving serious thought to the 4 x 25 over format that Sachin Tendulkar (and others) are expounding, to renew and regenerate the 50-over game. In fact, I’d go one step further by suggesting 2 x 20 overs to begin with, followed by 2 x 30 overs. This allows the team winning the toss to still reap some advantage by minimising the time they have to bat in the first stanza (if the ball is nipping around a bit) or maximising the time they have to bowl in the second session (if the pitch is starting to turn or keeping a bit low).

It also has the added bonus of ensuring that if there is rain later in the match (like the Australia vs India match last week), there can still be a Duckworth-Lewis result so long as there was sufficient time for a minimum of 40 overs. The possibility of a weather interruption will add a layer of intrigue to the tactics in that first session too – should teams use their Powerplays and best bowlers early doors or keep it in reserve and risk never using them? Fascinating stuff….

The main reason for suggesting this split format is to negate some of the effects of winning the toss, especially when conditions are hostile early on (like some of the early starts in Johannesburg) and or when they deteriorate late in the game (usually when the ball starts to turn or the pitch gets slow). Of course there will still be some advantage in winning the toss but it won’t be a four-hour advantage. In some conditions, that’s almost fatal to the team losing the toss.

The tactics will be extremely interesting to watch. Human nature being what it is, any batsman who is at the crease towards the end of the first lot of 20 overs will naturally be a bit more conservative so he can resume his innings when the next installment begins. Is this a good time for the fielding team to take their Powerplay then, from overs 16-20? Is it a good time to get a few cheap overs out of the 5th and 6th bowlers? For the batting team, in purely pragmatic terms, the 20th over should be treated like any other – each run is still worth the same amount. But, it would take a brave batsman prepared to take risks in that 20th over and miss out on the chance to start afresh a few hours later?

It would bring the fitness of allrounders into the game much more too. Someone like Jacques Kallis is likely to be not out at the end of the first innings, then bowl some overs and chase balls in the outfield, only to resume his innings once again. His rhythm would have been disrupted (batting or bowling) so it would take good skills to pick up where he left off, showing off a new dimension to his all-round game.

Another advantage would be that it possibly allows the team that is struggling to break the rhythm of the game and thereby try to claw their way back. Any rule change that allows a chance for a 'comeback' must surely be a good thing. A bowling team that is bleeding runs in the 20th over has time to break the momentum, re-think their field placings or strategies and start again. It might be just what the 50-over game needs to renew interest in those middle overs when it all becomes all too predictable.

A final twist to add spice to this new format - instead of the compulsory 10-over Powerplay at the start of the game, why not have two compulsory five-over stints at the start of each innings? The batting and fielding Powerplays can still be taken at the discretion of the captain but if there’s a compulsory Powerplay from overs one to five and then again from 21-25, it will broaden the skill base of all players. Someone like a Mohammad Yousuf or Rahul Dravid, supremely skilled at working the ball into gaps during the middle overs will be forced to bring another dimension to their game if they resume on say 30 not out in the 21st over and have to start again in a Powerplay. We’ll soon see the end of one-dimensional players or we’ll see some unusual changes in the batting order just prior to the first innings break. Either way, the unpredictability and innovation is just what ODI cricket needs.

What do you think? Do we have the basis of an idea worth exploring? My mind is already racing with the various sub-plots that will inevitably play out if this format is adopted, even if it’s only in knockout type tournaments where it would be a shame to see the toss dictate the winner of the game. Cricket needs to balance the ledger in favour of the better team rather than the lucky one!