SonOfAPitch

While driving to work this morning I suddenly had the realization that, although there was much talk the last two years about the prospects of T20 cricket and the impact it may have on other forms of the same game, there is not really consensus reached over whether the T20 format is a bowler’s or batter’s game!

Even though my opinion may count for absolutely zilch, indulge me for a while while I give a perspective from a player such as myself.

In cricket you have predominently two types of cricketers.  The thinking, intelligent, technically correct cricketer and the innovative, superintelligent cricketer with an eye to match.

Now…take an average game of cricket and you will find that during the course of a match less than 40% of all runs scored comes from the ball crossing the ropes…(for those less eloquent in the cricket lingo, “hitting boundaries”).  So for the sake of the argument, let’s take that little statistic and translate it into what it would take to score those runs.  First of all you will need bowlers bowling at you at a reasonable line and lenght, good pace, decent spin…all in all not giving you all that much to work with.  As a batsman you need to have faith in the human makeup that determines that all people during the course of ANY physical activity will tire and therefor the odd loose ball will be bowled.  On the flipside you have batsmen that is, as mentioned earlier, technically correct, intelligent and are opportunists.  When the odd bad delivery arrives you need to capitilise to make sure you reach that average of 40% in boundaries.  Yet you technical prowess will see you through the quiet periods chipping away at a score with well directed little glances and pushes into space.

If anyone reading the above still don’t know what point I am trying to bring accross, suffice to say that the above is what typically would happen during and evenly contested 50 over game when the batting side, during the modern era, will push towards a score of around 250/6.

T20 cricket requires a different breed of cricketer.  This type of cricketer has an excellent knowledge of the workings of his OWN body, knows how to and when to push the limits, can get extremely innovative in his shot selection or a delivery that needs to be bowled, knows his surroundings inside and out and knows the players he is playing against.  I don’t believe yet that we have seen the ultimate of what T20 cricket has to offer.  In the next ten years specialist cricketers will evolve from the older form of the game we all have known for many decades that will be suited ONLY for this form of the T20 format.  A good indicator that my prediction is not that farfetched is that India have started a professional T20 league that will utilise the best players the cricket world have to offer.  From such a league, a new breed of cricketer will inevitably be spawned that could possibly push all boundaries in the shortened version.  What boudaries you may ask? 

Well, with the advent of T20 cricket we all believed that achieving a score of 160 in your 20 overs will be a match winning total.  In the first season of this form in the domestic competion in South Africa is was not uncommon to see sides win more than they would lose with scores of as little as 140.  During the recent Twenty20 world cup we have seen many sides bringing in fresh players the world knew very little about because of their superior hitting skills.  Guys like Misbah, Morkel, Philander…and various others…  Now a match winning total, from a batsman’s point of view, is touching 200!

Taking into consideration that a total of 720 runs could theoretically be scored in a 120 ball stint, when will we be seeing batting totals touching 300?  The first glimpse of such an occurence was during that magnificient one day game between SA and Oz where 880 runs was scored in 100 overs with the loss of 13 wickets.  That is a comined sustained runrate of almost 9 runs per over!  That already rivals the 9,5 runs per over needed to win more games than you will lose in the T20 format.  Is 300 runs an innings that far off into the future?  I think not.

Talking about the batsman point of view may have you think by now that maybe I am inclined to rule that the T20 version is officially a batsman’s game.  But let’s delve into the bowler’s point of view for a moment.

One of the most difficult balls to contend with, nevermind scoring off, is the yorker.  Highly underutilised in the modern game, 50 overs and T20, it makes perfect sense that a superior bowler of the yorker would be worth his weight in gold.  If it swings…oh my…bags full of sticks and economical figures are on the cards, in BOTH forms of the game.  The secret to being a great bowler, as opposed to being a good one, is the ability to develope a fair amount of variation in your deliveries.  A good example of that would be Shaun Pollock during the T20 world cup.  At a vital stage in of the games he bowled a few slow bouncers!  The term “slow bouncers”  would have had people like Afridi and Gibbs salivating at the prospect a few years ago, but in the context of a hard fought T20 match, you are expecting balls to be delivered at even pace.  It is commonly recognised that when the pressure is on bowlers tend to want to bowl too quickly, too straight (aiming for the stumps).  Can you imagine what a monkey you must feel like when a slow bouncer beats you all ends up?  Priceless.  Now compare Pollock to Stuard Broad from England.  I am a bowler myself, but being 31 years old I can guarantee you that even though I have less pace than he has, that Indian Yuvraj Singh would not have come close to 36 runs in a over off my bowling!  Yes, he smashed 50 off 12 balls, awesome I understand, but how one-track minded do you as a bowling attack have to be to allow something like that?

So! Verdict?  I believe that T20 cricket will evolve, just like the 50 format did during the 70’s and 80’s and to a lesser degree during the 90’s.  We have not seen the best that T20 cricket have to offer.  But to wether this format is a batsman’s or bowler’s game?  At the moment my feeling is that it’s predominently an individualist’s game.  One man can win or lose a game for you.  Lack of variety on the part of a bowler or a batsmen will be exposed, maybe not just yet, as I believe that as the game would evolve, so the coaching of T20 sides and the players’ style would evolve, BUT… real specialist, big hitting batsmen and highly intelligent bowlers with superior variety will spawn from it.  So ask me the question again in 10 years or so, maybe then the true answer would be evident to all anyway…