Published: Feb 19, 2015, 04:31 AM (IST)
Edited: Feb 19, 2015, 04:31 AM (IST)
South African legend Barry Richards has called on the authorities for legalising ball tampering in a way to settle the balance between bat and ball in the modern game. He feels that there is an unfair imbalance between bat and ball currently.
“All I want is a 50-50 contest, which it is not now. If it continues the way it is, kids will only want to bat. There will be no bowlers and the game will decline,” Richards told News Ltd, fearing the future of the game because of bat dominating ball.
Richards, a South African right-handed batsman played his only four Tests for South Africa in 1970, averaging over 70, before the country’s sporting isolation forced him to spend most of his career in domestic leagues in his homeland, England and Australia with great success.
Richards provides some solution like allowing ball-tampering, placing restrictions on bat making and a relaxed rule regarding bowling leg-side to even up the contest. “Reverse swing is an art. Let the bowlers rub the ball in the dirt if they want because not all bowlers can produce reverse swing,” Richards added.
“Maybe in one-day cricket you could let the better bowlers bowl 25 of the 50 overs, but only two bowlers are nominated before the start to bowl those overs. The pressing of cricket bats also has to be controlled and the thickness in their edges. Maybe there can also be a designated sweet spot area for bats, ours used to be about the size of a 50 cent piece but now they are much bigger. You could also relax cricket’s leg-side rules a bit. These are just a few of my ideas, because batsmen have it too easy these days,” said Richards.
Several batting records were broken in recent years including last month’s AB de Villiers registering the fastest One-Day International (ODI) hundred in just 31 balls. Previous to de Villiers, last year Rohit Sharma scored the highest ODI score of 264 runs from just 173 balls against Sri Lanka. To add, all four ODI double centuries have been scored this decade. Even in this ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, the first five matches of the tournament saw teams scoring in excess of 300.
Recently, David Richardson, the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) chief executive brought the topic of bat-making and said the issue will be discussed at the ICC’s cricket committee meeting in May. Any law changes will have to be made in consultation with the MCC, the cricket’s official law makers.
In July, the MCC’s World Cricket Committee, a 14-person panel of former and current players, of which Richards used to be a member, decided against placing any restrictions on bat sizes. “For the time being, we feel that there is a decent balance there (between bat and ball). But clearly it needs monitoring to make sure it doesn’t slip too far in one direction in the future,” said Andrew Strauss
