Healing the ODI

With Twenty20 being undeniably hip, and the game's custodians and patrons worrying themselves silly over the marketability of test cricket, the 50-over format finds itself out in the cold; well, not entirely. Speculation is now rife about the future, and indeed the very need for this form of the game. The tipping point, apparently, has been the short-sighted scheduling of two series currently in progress; a seven-match borefest in England which seems to have been designed with the intention of sobering up the euphoric Ashes winners, and a tri-series in Sri Lanka so meaningless it has everyone looking forward to the Champions Trophy.

Peter Roebuck tries to reassure us of the importance of the format by citing the indelible mark it has time and again left on the sport. Several people on blogosphere don't quite share Roebuck's optimism; Chinese Cut claims 50-over cicket is fighting a losing battle, while Silly Maid On feels compelled to label the Lankan series as "fake", and bemoans the lack of context surrounding them.

I still see the format as relevant, but much tinkering needs to be done to drag it out of its rut of stale air. Moves like introducing supersubs and powerplays have been shown up as plain superficial. Sachin Tendulkar has proposed splitting the total of 100 overs into four innings, and no doubt we'll see several more suggestions coming out in the near future. The list below is a set of possible changes - major and minor - which could be used to improve the format, though I must concede some of them are not without their potential drawbacks.

1. The Innings Split: Sachin's suggestion of 25-over innings is not to be dismissed lightly, for it adds an element of strategic complexity. It isn't a completely new idea - Martin Crowe's domestically implemeted Cricket Max, the precursor of T20, used the two-innings-per-side format. My main reservation is that it is supposed to take the advantage garnered from the conditions - and therefore the toss - out of the equation, and I'd much rather see sides try to adapt. Nevertheless, it could be trialled in domestic games.

2. Scheduling: I would suggest that for every bilateral series, the concerned board be allotted a maximum of six limited-over games to be distributed between T20s and ODIs at it sees fit. Also, bilateral ODI series which aren't part of a test tour (eg. Australia in India, 2007) should be scrapped altogether. This would help streamline things a bit. Occasionally, boards could use the tri-series format to their convenience - this year, England could have hosted the West Indies and Australia in the old Natwest format between the respective test series. It couldn't have worked out any worse than the ongoing ODIs.

3. The Powerplays: I've never been a fan of them, but since the batting powerplay has lent some intrigue to the proceedings perhaps it could remain while the bowling version is done away with.

4. Maximum Number Of Overs Per Bowler: I'd like to see an increase from 10 to 12. It'll encourage teams to rely more on specialist bowlers, rather than having bits-and-pieces men fill in the gaps during the middle overs.

5. Maximise The Boundary Size: The India-NZ series earlier in the year featured some of the shortest boundaries ever seen, which meant even a score of 392 was not easy to defend. By removing the ropes and making the boundaries longer, the batsmen will not be able to clear the fence so easily , and will have to rely either on cleanly struck blows or inventive chip shots over the infield (the latter especially have become increasingly uncommon).

6. The Free Hit: Scrap it. The batsmen have enough going for them.

7. Cutting The Tail: This is a fairly radical suggestion a friend came up with a few years ago: it can get rather annoying to see tailenders throw the bat around and put up some chancy runs on the board, so how about getting the teams to nominate a batting lineup of just eight players out of eleven at the start of their innings? A team would need to be extra mindful of their approach, and we might see some interesting choices based on the conditions - I'm sure Daniel Vettori would always nominate himself playing on the Premadasa, for instance.

8. The Max Zone: Getting back to Cricket Max, Crowe advocated a "semi-circular Max Zone at each end embracing traditional long-on and long-off, and extending to the boundary, the boundary effectively being the diameter of the semi-circle." While I wouldn't use every rule pertaining to the max zone (see link), a modified version would do just fine - a four or six in the zone would be doubled to eight or twelve. The main benefits of the rule, apart from thrilling the spectator, are 1) Encouraging straight hitting, in the "V" and 2) forcing the bowlers to work on keeping it in the blockhole.

9. Free Entry For Kids At The Ground: The Under-13's are probably the most vital component of the game's fanbase. Television should not be wholly relied upon to retain them.

10. Separate Home And Away Uniforms: While this might seem a trivial change, it would be a step towards re-enforcing the nature and primacy of the bilateral ODI, and adding some identity to these fixtures. Australia have already done it, with green at home and gold away. It's time for the rest to follow suit.

11. The Champions Trophy: Now that this much maligned tournament has come the full circle and is back to the same eight teams (excluding Zimbabwe), it really should revert to the knockout format of its initial avatar. Imagine how much more appetizing a tournament of four quarterfinals, two semis and a final would have been.

12. Revamp The World Cup: Well, what to say. This probably deserves a post of its own, but it goes without saying the Council must get it right. How, I'm not sure.

That's pretty much what I can put together off the top of my head. Feel free to add your suggestions in the comments section.