marc71178 said:
So why say what you did in answer to my question then?
I asked if you thought that that list of players were better than all but 3 current bowlers, and you said "most of them yes, rather obviously"
Most of them, rather obviously, have better economy-rates because they played in an era where ODIs were different to how they are now.
Is what I meant.
And the fact that I said Dale didn't play in the era all the rest of them did should have registered something.
Smaller grounds for a start, flatter wickets making runs easier to come by.
And the fielding restrictions have evolved as well.
Well, not smaller grounds, but yes, smaller boundaries.
Not exactly sure when the field-restriction regulations have become what they are, always said that, but certainly the things as they are now have been what they are since 1996 at the latest.
It is possible that the 15-overs and 16-50 over thing came at a different time. Either way, they've both been around for a long time now.
Flat wickets don't make good bowling into poor bowling, though.
And smaller boundaries equally don't make good bowling likely to be more expensive because there will be less boundaries attempted.
They just make poor bowling more likely to be very expensive instead of expensive. Hence higher totals.
They certainly won't make bad batsmen look like good ones.
But the epidemic of boundaries that are too short for credible cricket is something which needs to be culled, soon, if one-day cricket is to remain recognisable as cricket.
Otherwise, it saddens me to say, you might as well replace it with 20-over slogs.
What I'm hoping is that the 20-over slogs, where short boundaries are entirely suitable, will sate the appetites for stupidly fast scoring-rates and might make ODIs be considered less so, and have proper-sized boundaries with regularity again.
