Imagine If.....

[Noble One]

How about we do away with the bounday rope, and just paint a white line, if the ball goes over the line it is a 4, if it doesn't then it isn't a four.. It would do away with having to wait every time a fielder fields somthing near the rope to see if his anal hair has touched the rope or not..

nah that would be waay to radical

Should just bring back the ruling that you need to hit the ball to the fence to score a boundary. None of this rope business. Nothing puts the heart in your mouth more than a fielder racing after the ball and nearing the boundary fence at great pace.

 

[Richard]

That's, y'know, kinda why ropes are compulsary...

No-one wants to see fielders injured trying to stop one piddling run.

 

[Noble One]

Agree entirely. My post was more in-jest. Still remember Ricky Ponting crashing into the advertising boards.

The roping in of boundaries has gone way too far though. Fair enough bringing the rope in 2 metres, but some of the grounds around the world now...10 odd metres.

 

[Richard]

Yep - Matthew Engel said that in his 2007 (I think) Wisden editor's notes. Having the rope in 2m (or whatever it is - I think that's it) from the boundary to protect fielders is not merely fair enough, it's essential. But there should also, in my view, be a stipulation that it goes in no more than that, and that a ground's entire playing area is utilised (maybe this can have an exception made in Twenty20). I actually seem to remember some sort of stipulation for this was proposed at some point, but not sure it was followed-up.

 

[Jamee999]

So did Chris Read, I think it was Chris Cairns who bowled it. At the time of release, the ball was outside the sight screen, so Read thought it was beamer or something.

As immortalised...