Cricket has evolved over the years; especially the shot making! Ranjith Singhji an Indian playing for England, was credited with the invention of leg-glance. Then came the sweep and further improvised paddle-sweep and later the reverse-sweep.
Ian Botham was credited with the early and successful implementation of reverse-sweep. Mike Gatting employed this shot to extreme use against India in 1985 and got the better of them. But this same shot gutted his team in the 1987 Reliance Cup Final. This actually was the beginning of the Revival of Australian Cricket. The Aussies have never looked back from there.
More and more innovations have evolved since the 90s. First it was Zimbabwean Marillier's scoop-shot that floored India once. He had earlier employed the same shot against Glen McGrath with some kind of success. Today, Dinesh Karthik and even Ashish Nehra are relishing the scoop like little kids do with a scoop of ice-cream!
Now we have some more exciting shots like M. S. Dhoni's 'Helicopter Shot', Kevin Peitersen's 'Switch Hit' and Brendon McCullum's 'Ramp Shot'! And then we have Aussie youngster David Warner's 'Innovated Switch Hit'.
So Cricket is getting more and more aggressive. But isn't it getting a little too loaded in favor of batsmen? All the new rules like 'free-hit', wide ruling for negative bowling etc are in favor of batsmen. Even the pitches world-over are becoming more and more batting friendly.
So it should be fair enough if bowlers all over expect the 'LBW' rule to be amended. When a batsman switches sides and hits against the line, the 'Pitched outside the leg stump' rule becomes blurred. Hence if he misses the line and is wrapped on the pads in front of the stumps, the batsman should be given out LBW.
It is desirable to see even the wide rule changed to allow the bowler the liberty to fire outside the leg-stump. If a batsman plays a premeditated 'switch-hit' and misses, the leg-side wide rule should be a bit lenient for the bowler. Otherwise, bowlers will have extremely difficult times in shorter formats of the game and all the flat-track-bullies will rule the world of Cricket.
And in spite of all these innovations, we saw fans requesting Virendar Sehwag to desist from playing the reverse shot at the Eden! If someone can score with 100% strike rate in a Test match playing normal shots; why does he need to play abnormal shots? This post is not against any innovations; but we should not make it completely batsman oriented! Give the bowlers some respite!
ICC should look at this scenario. In the 80s and even till mid-90s, every team had at least two World-Class pacers who played quality Cricket over long periods. Lillee, Thomson, Alderman and Hogg served well for Australia. Marshall, Garner, Holding, Roberts, Benjamin, Patterson, Ambrose and Walsh did it for West Indies. Hadlee, Chatfield and later Morrison played with distinction for New Zealand. England had Botham, Willis, Allot etc. Pakistan had Imran Khan, Sarfraz Nawaz and later the famed duo of Wasim and Waqar. Even India had Kapil Dev and to a lesser extent Manoj Prabhakar and later Srinath who did well.
Now look at the picture today! Except McGrath, Chaminda Vas, Brett lee and Zaheer Khan; most of the 'Fast Bowlers' have flattered to deceive. We certainly can't forget Allan Donald and Pollock of South Africa. But even from this list, only Glen McGrath and Donald had a relatively steady career. Not a single team boasts of a consistently menacing duo or trio of Pacers today.
South Africa have Dale Steyn and that's it. Aussies are struggling with their pace combination. India will have to suffer when Zaheer is not around. England have a list of wannabes but not one leader of the pack. Same situation with West-Indies and Pakistan. Another genuine Pacer, Shane Bond of New Zealand has played lesser tests than any player who has played International Cricket for so long.
Why is it so? Simple, the game has become so loaded in favor of batsmen; the bowlers have to work so much harder just to survive. With the extraordinary amount of Cricket played; injuries, burn outs and simply lack of bench strength has caused steep decline in bowling standards.
Cricket is not just about hitting sixes and fours. It is also about beating batsmen and getting wickets! The ICC has to stop this downward journey of bowling. The bowlers need some encouragement too. We definitely don't want to see totals of 500 for 2 from 50 overs being chased down easily by team batting second.
In a recent advertisement, M. S. Dhoni is urging us to save the Tigers because there are only about 1400 of them left today. Wake up ICC and all other people concerned with running Cricket! Save the Bowlers; We don't have even 14 of them today!!!
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