In the end I'd be happy to cherry pick out of test cricket If they are taking a minute minimum to bowl one ball and you are almost certain that bowler/batsman are not even looking to take a wicket or score off that minutes play then its rather dull. 5minutes of throwing balls down a channel that the batsman happily leaves and plays at 2 and over is dishwater dull. Bazball for all its obvious flaws goes at 4 to 5 an over and you tune into see the batting on full attack. You tune in to see the bowling at full attack for the closing phases. I think personally there are certain aspects of the thing that need to change, but not in the way that ODI and T20 have made the sport into a driving range where you might as well put a machine to do the bowling. 90 overs in a day. hardly ever enforced. no punishment for not getting them in. 80 overs for a ball. The best of the ball is gone after 20 overs. then spin is coming into it later. What we do not want to do is to kill the skill of bowling but we should be attacking the time wasting element. Possible examples: 1. Give each side a set number of overs to bat in. Not limited like 50 overs cricket. say you have 90 overs max to score as many as you can. Would that not change to whole approach to the game? If you get skittled in 50 or 30 or whatever then the next side comes out and starts their 90 overs. 2. Make 5th day a reserve day. Put it on a Monday. Start tests on Thursday and have the weekend for 3rd and 4th days. 3. penalise slow play. give free hits to batsmen if over rate is slow form bowlers. If batsmen are standing off their crease then dock an over from their 90. 4. Perhaps enliven the game with faster change of the ball. say 50 overs per ball max. 5. bring science into the pitches. What is needed? quick bouncy, hard pitches or grippy pitches or whatever. Develop a standard test method and if a pitch is not up to it then dock the home side 10 overs. (you'd be amazed how this would get grounds peoples attention) 6. honestly at some point the type of fields has to maybe be looked at. negative fields may naturally go away if you've 90 overs to defend but if not then enforce the odi ring perhaps just to force some change but you have the be allowed set a trap and pump in bouncers for the pull or have 6 slips or whatever you like still. Everyone on the ropes defending and the ball whizzing down miles away form the stumps is boring. I don't know what's best but i do know that any limits on the bowling would be the death of test cricket. we have enough close their eyes and slog away forms of the game. We need the best bowling skills on show.
There are penalties for slow over rate but don't effect the match being played https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...-vs-india-2nd-test-1381213/live-cricket-score
When it comes to slow overs I would do the following.: All overs below 90 they fail to get in during the day, the next day they start off with that amount of overs and the batsman cannot be given out for anything during that period of non bowled overs. The opposition can go into full T20 mode without worry. That might change a few attitudes
batsmen would just waste time to get the penalty overs . Plus with test match rules it can be quite difficult to even reach the ball as was shown years ago when Zimbabwe bowled very wide of off stump then down leg side to get a draw (iirc) against England .
which is a perfectly legal tactic. The wide marks are the wide marks. I would not want to see the very very narrow slot bowling that's enforced on ODI and t20. you might as well have a machine bowling at that point.
I have the perfect solution to tests anyway. no draws allowed. If a side is "nominally" in the lead when time runs out then give then an advantage is some form of super over or whatever to decide the result. here's one idea: Change test cricket into a series of ODIs but with freedom to bowl. 45 overs for each team per day. This then negates the impact of the toss somewhat as both teams bat and bowl on day 1. each ide still only gets 20 wickets however. if your openers are that good they can play 45 overs and keep going great. but you will only have a total of 225 overs in the game that you can bat in so if 2 guys can't be got then work away. Rather than be a series of odi with heavily restricted bowling and a slog fest we allow all the usual test stuff to take place. If a side lose hours to rain and cannot get in 45 overs then that day is reduced for both sides by 10 or 15 overs at a time. No excuses for slow play are allowed. If a side is trying to run down the clock and only get in 43 before the change then the other side only get 43 overs to respond. If one side is found by umpires to be deliberately slow they lose 10 overs only. a massive punishment. now you get to the interesting bit for no draws. You have a trend here, a winner overall is over 5 days who scored the most runs before being bowled out. over over each day you've a winner as well. If you've got day 4 and 5 complete washouts then you've still got 3 days of results. England slogged 592 all out there in 107 overs or what I'd call 2 days play. the Australians scored 317 in 90 overs first and then 214 in 71 overs. You don't even need Duckworth Lewis here. england 5.53 per over and Australia v 3.9 per over. simply declare the higher scorers the winners. This then rewards positive play while preserves all the difficulties of batting against test level bowling. It also probably helps the bowlers as you are not flogging them to death. Its 11 overs per man in a 4 man attack.
it's still a test. a test over 5 days with means to remove draws and force positivity while mainta8ning the full range of bowling. for me a test is not 5 days of lads bowling outside off stump and batamsn raising his bat theatrically then wandering down and tapping surface. it's a bit dull is that.
Or times change and as a result Cricket is as stupid a game now as royal tennis is Another rich persons game I tried to like cricket Bad summer for me - football killing itself and cricket shot itself
I agree to a point but it just something I can’t get to grips with I think it could have been thrilling It’s just not the same for me now hope England can get something out of it but I won’t be watching I no loss anyway - just a casual misery guts lmao
some interesting stuff coming out. ben stokes. oh i'll just becomes a spin bowler. thats hilarious stuff but he can do anything. if roooooot can throw a few i'm sure stokes can.
Question: If England win the toss again. Bowl or bat? I feel they are best chasing and it does look like a bit of a bowling track this morning based on the conditions
