While we are reveling at the moment in Zimbabwe doing well in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, it is interesting to recall how cricket has shown innovation over recent decades to make the game more popular. When once we only had five-day Test matches, soon 40 over and 50 over matches were introduced, only to be superseded by T20 (twenty twenty) matches, with World Cups every two years instead of the standard every four years in other sports. ICC have to crack the formula.
Back in 2011 a man by the name of Mike Norrish shared tongue-in-cheek ways to make cricket even more entertaining. These fun gimmicks included the following: “If a batsman can catch one of his own shots, he is not out. Have a People’s Powerplay (instead of the traditional powerplay) whereby for one over, to be nominated during the game by public text vote, only three fielders are permitted on the pitch. The twist, however, is that boundaries do not count, forcing the batsmen to run everything. In true park-cricket style, if the batsman hits the ball over the fence, he has to go and fetch it himself. Crowd catches count. It’s incorrect to claim, as some do, that a six sailing into the stands is cricket’s most spectacular sight. Actually, it’s a six sailing into the stands and then being insouciantly pouched, one-handed, by the sunburnt bloke in Row F. To encourage more ‘hands in the stands’, batsmen caught in the crowd should be given out. To liven up the dull middle overs, singles should be punished by the umpires. If the batsman do trot through for a single, an extra stump is added at the end of the over. Fours and sixes count double during this period.” That all sounds exciting and enlivening!
Silly? Yes, but that is cricket, many will say – after all, Americans cannot understand how you can play a match for five days and still not find a winner! Equally we could easily simply look at the names of fielding positions in cricket: silly mid-off and silly mid-on, short leg, long leg, square leg, third man slip, gully, wicket keeper… seriously? What on earth are those all about? And cow corner…?
Cricket is certainly a unique sport, not simply with the terminology. More significantly, perhaps, it is unique because it is a team game but very individualistic. A batter may well be part of a team but when he is batting, he is one man against eleven others. He is having to deal with a ball spearing his way while at the same time deal with taunting, teasing, mocking, sledging coming at him from all angles. There are shades there of the Henry Newbolt poem ‘Vitae Lampada’ with its opening lines: “There’s a breathless hush in the Close to-night — Ten to make and the match to win — A bumping pitch and a blinding light, an hour to play and the last man in.” Pressure is all centred on one man but the whole team depends on him. The team can no longer help the batter – he is on his own, but he is part of a team. That one player must crack it.
An individual batter may make a massive score but his team mates score few and he loses. Chris Gayle holds a record for carrying his bat for 63 out of the team’s total of 101 in a T20 match in 2009. Martin Guptill of New Zealand scored 93 runs in his country’s chase of 118 against Sri Lanka in 2015, that being 79% of the team’s total. In ODIs, the Zimbabwean Charles Coventry scored an incredible 194 runs not out (50.5% of the team’s 384/6) only to lose the match. Cracked it!
In a similar manner, a bowler bowling from one end may give his heart out only for his team members to misfield the ball or drop an easy catch. T20 matches often come down to it being all about whether the bowler can prevent the opposition scoring a certain number of runs in those last six balls. The individual bowler against the individual batter with fielders often not being involved or required. Think of the famous quote by commentator Ian Bishop in the 2016 T20 World Cup Final when Brathwaite hit four consecutive sixes in the final over against England to secure a thrilling victory for the West Indies: “Carlos Brathwaite, remember the name!” It was not the team but the individual who was remembered (and also the name of the bowler, Ben Stokes). It was one man against all the odds, be it the bowler or the batter yet the whole team depended on those two.
When the player steps up to the crease, it is a test, sure, it is one versus a team but it is also one within a team. Innovation may come in all forms and varieties but one thing remains the same when it comes to individuals and teams. We must coach these lessons. Crack it? Silly? Bye? Cheers!