Published: Mar 11, 2017, 06:04 PM (IST)
Edited: Mar 11, 2017, 06:04 PM (IST)
Australian vice-captain David Warner feels positive that the upcoming restrictions on bat sizes by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) will not have any detrimental effect on run scoring. The MCC on Tuesday declared that from October 2017, the thickness of professional cricket bats will be limited to a maximum of 108mm width, 67mm depth and 40mm edges. Warner’s current hefty T20 bat being maximum 85mm in depth, is said to be a full 18mm more than the new law allows, reports The Australian. But the cricketer is not concerned by the changes, irrespective of the concerns of fellow batsmen around the world.
As reported by cricket.com.au, Warner said on Saturday, “We’re just going to have to adapt to the change. The ball will still go the same distance, still go to the fence, we will still get our ones and twos. The odd nick might not carry this time.”
Though the law is still seven months away from action, which is being amended, to “redress the balance between bat and ball”, Warner is already said to be in talks with his bat manufacturer, Gray-Nicolls. Along with New Zealand captain Kane Williamson, who is also contracted to the same bat manufacturing company, Warner visited their Melbourne warehouse last year to inspect the new designs and test older versions to see if they would be permitted as per the new rules. “We put a whole range of bats from when I first started and when others started,” Warner said. “I’m not sure if they were the correct measurements but they weren’t going through the measurement (gauge) that they’re doing. They (bat manufacturers) have to govern that as well. We have to use whatever the bat-maker brings us.”
Fellow Australian captain Steven Smith will also be facing the same consequences with his bats, if the rule comes in power. Hence it is believed that Smith travelled to Jalandhar to see the manufacturing of the same.
The rules have been formulated with Smith’s first Test captain, Ricky Ponting on the MCC panel who credits the feedback from key stakeholders in cricket to have convinced them to present the rules. Talking to RadioLIVE’s Saturday Sport in New Zealand, Ponting said that the panel consulted manufactures and players after which 60 or 70 per cent of them felt the bats were too big. “We asked all the bat companies for their thoughts and opinions on it all, and they felt they could make high-quality bats perform well under those limitations. The overall feeling across the panel is that the balance has gone a little too far in favour of the batsmen. We have 12 or 14 guys on the panel who talk long and hard about trying to find the balance between bat and ball in the game across all three formats.”
However, not all seem to be in agreement with Ponting’s views. Former New Zealand cricketer Scott Styris came out in Twitter to express his disapproval of the rule, saying the “inmates have taken over the asylum”.
Ponting, in defiance of the decision, discarded off Styris’ comments as “ridiculous accusation” and said he has not put much thought into what he is saying. “We are seeing batsmen now hitting sixes on some of the biggest cricket grounds in the world where the ball hits nowhere near the middle of the bat. Let’s just see how it goes,” Ponting added.
