Balance between bat and ball

[LA ICE-E]

Ok, since the unprecedented and exciting changes cricket has been going through thanks to Standford 20/20 and IPL, what can be done to help try to balance the game between bat and ball in the one-day cricket specially 20/20. Any Ideas?

[Richard]

Twenty20 isn't supposed to have a balance between bat and ball. That's the whole point - it's supposed to favour bat (not batsmen, but bat), and if it doesn't then it's a letdown. That's why I find it so extremely boring.

There's only one thing that can be done to improve the balance between bat and ball in one-day cricket - play 60 instead of 50 overs.

Well, actually, there's a few other things - longer boundaries, slower pitches, better-quality cricket-balls. But these are minor compared to an increase in overs. OD cricket needs to be as different from Twenty20 as possible.

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by LA ICE-E

Ok, since the unprecedented and exciting changes cricket has been going through thanks to Standford 20/20 and IPL, what can be done to help try to balance the game between bat and ball in the one-day cricket specially 20/20. Any Ideas?

Twenty20 cricket isn't about balance between bat and all. It is what it is.

The most important thing that has to be done to address said problem in ODIs is pitch variation, though. I actually think that has happened a bit more in the last year or two, but for a while, pitches were just getting flatter and flatter. It's good to have the odd batting paradise in a way, but it should be a rarity; not the norm.

Not only would more helpful pitches help restore the balance problem in ODIs, but it'd also make them less predictable. They seem to follow the same pattern a lot of the time, but this would change if pitches varied more - players would have to become more adaptabe and we'd see the matches take different routes. As it stands, ODIs resemble long Twenty20 matches more than short Test matches - I'd like to see that reversed.

[Goughy]

Originally Posted by LA ICE-E

Ok, since the unprecedented and exciting changes cricket has been going through thanks to Standford 20/20 and IPL, what can be done to help try to balance the game between bat and ball in the one-day cricket specially 20/20. Any Ideas?

Love how IPL and Stanford getting credit when it was the usually conservative guys that run English cricket took the brave step to introduce Twenty20. They brought about all these changes and should be credited (or criticised depending on POV). Noone else would have done what they did and they were laughed at.

As for balance, in the last few weeks we have seen teams bowled out in 20 or less overs in both Tests and Twenty20s. T20s just require different skills from the bowler. Players actually can progress as players by playing the format.

For ODIs, I dont know the answer is I dont really care that much about it.

[Richard]

Even if teams occasionally get bowled-out in 20 overs, Twenty20 remains designed not to be a contest between bat and ball. There remains the prospect of a slogged six any second. The idea is that the only vague chance of respectability a bowler has is wickets, not bowling economically.

Ergo, there is no contest between bat and ball. To have one of these requires the chance for a bowler to maintain a respectable economy-rate, something that can only ever happen by good fortune in Twenty20.

[slowfinger]

Originally Posted by Richard

Twenty20 isn't supposed to have a balance between bat and ball. That's the whole point - it's supposed to favour bat (not batsmen, but bat), and if it doesn't then it's a letdown. That's why I find it so extremely boring.

There's only one thing that can be done to improve the balance between bat and ball in one-day cricket - play 60 instead of 50 overs.

Well, actually, there's a few other things - longer boundaries, slower pitches, better-quality cricket-balls. But these are minor compared to an increase in overs. OD cricket needs to be as different from Twenty20 as possible.

No real point of 2020 apart from entertaining :P

[slowfinger]

Dont know why there is like loads of people making a fuss about a world tournament

[Scaly piscine]

Test cricket is generally balanced in favour of the bowlers - very good bowling can and frequently does make up for mediocre batting (see England 3 years ago).

ODI cricket is generally balanced in favour of the batsmen - very good bowling is rewarded very little on the generally flat wickets with the batsmen being able to pick when to attack and finding it easy to survive.

Twenty20 is in between the two, good bowling and good batting are both similarly well rewarded and a single bowler or batsman can easily swing the game decisively one way or another.


The whole contest between bat and ball thing depends on how you define that phrase in the first place.

[Richard]

Twenty20 cricket will never reward good bowling - it may allow bowling (both good and bad) to take wickets but it will never allow economical bowling other than in freakish circumstances.

[silentstriker]

Originally Posted by Richard

Twenty20 cricket will never reward good bowling - it may allow bowling (both good and bad) to take wickets but it will never allow economical bowling other than in freakish circumstances.

Just today we had an example of great bowling by the Daredevils, which took wickets and kept the runs down.

ODIs are way too in favor of batting.
T20 is a good mixture, good bowling is very very important.

[Richard]

Good bowling's very important in ODIs too, it's just those who have a rabid one-day-cricket hate think for some very odd reason that it's more important in Twenty20 (sometimes a Twenty20 love and sometimes both) than the one-day game.

[bond21]

Bowlers have no hope in T20....batsmen can sacrifice themselves without caring because theres 10 wickets in 20 overs....they can lose a wicket every 2 overs and still bat the entire innings.

[Athlai]

Balance is the same if you just change the way in which you gauge it. Bowling at 6 or under for an over means you've done superbly. Because in this game a bowler is aiming to go for as few runs as possible, in Test for as many wickets, in One dayers a mixture of the two.

While in Test cricket, bowling em out for 100-300 is the aim of the bowler, in a T20 the aim is to keep em below 150, if you do that you've done as much as you can as a bowler for your team.

[Nutter]

I think because of the massive pressure to score quickly in T20s, there's certainly more opportunity to grab wickets if you bowl well than in one dayers where there is always some time to consolidate and defend for a few overs.

I dunno, I was not the biggest fan of T20s when the idea first came about, but having watched a few matches over the last couple of years, I'm warming to it. International T20s are still a bit ho-hum to me, but the IPL where you get the chance to see guys like Jayasuriya and Tendulkar open the batting in the same team, that's just fantastic. Same reason I prefer watching Champions League/EPL soccer over World Cup soccer.

[bond21]

yea but like in the EPL you get players that are clearly a lower standard than the rest of the team....

Those indian players noone has heard of in the same team as Lee and Kallis doesnt seem right...theyre breathing the same air as our superstars.

Its like Wes Brown in Manchester United....one of these things is not like the others.....