10 most influential innovations in world cricket

May 11, 2016 at 4:16 PM

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10 most influential innovations in world cricket

Cricket over the years has been modernised into a game that has no similarity to his format that innovated in the 16th century. England cricket was poor and British Imperial ship carried cricket to every corner of the world- Europe, Africa, Carribean, South East Asia- that made a game popular. Since  1864, when the Test cricket innovated cricket has worn many innovations. Here are the 10 most influential innovations in world cricket.

Kerry Packer World Series

World Series Cricket was an argument over broadcasting rights which turned into a battle for the direction of the game, with the traditionalists of the ACB and ICC facing off against the media magnate Kerry Packer’s plans to modernise cricket.

In 1979, Australia’s media magnate Kerry Packer plan a tournament where international players would converge there to play together in rainbow jersey in a commercial league.  The norms of the tournament were all the games will be played under the floodlight with a white ball and the use of effects.

There were memorable images, such as England’s Denis Amiss walking out to bat with a modified motorcycle helmet in an attempt to protect himself against the pacemen.

The success of the World series Cricket popularized the day-night format for one day’s games and revolutionized TV coverage of cricket.

This tournament also helped players to be professional as the influx of money changed their life. Players also focus on fitness and started sporting helmets.

Overarm bowling:

There was a time when ICC didn’t need to exist and subcontinent was unwilling to play the game, there was no rivalry between England and Australia, Pakistan was even not born. It wasn’t until 1835 that roundarm bowling became legal in cricket, and overarm bowling was born in 1864, only 13 years before the first-ever Test.

But what if they hadn’t allowed roundarm or overarm bowling?

Without this innovation cricket may lose its charm. Possibly the world could have been cricket less.

It is the single most important thing that has ever happened to cricket, and it is not overly surprising that the cricket officials tried to stop it.

Digby Jephson, who was known as the lobster got more flight than any other spinner of modern they cricket. He could out a batsman with his over the head delivery.

The lobster had the first class average of 25. He took a hat-trick against Middlesex, once took 77 wickets in a season, and his best figures were 7 for 51 against  Gloucestershire.

The lobster retired in 1904. Underarm bowling was finished (Trevor Chappell aside) shortly after World War I. By then, overarm bowling had turned a novelty game into one of the greatest sports ever invented. You can thank English dressmakers, frustrated bowlers, and those who believed the game they loved could get better.

The bigger and wider bat

The International Cricket Council always tried to save the batsman from the trick of bowlers. Batsmen hardly face a ban for their batting style but bowlers are forced to follows’ ICC prescribed rules otherwise they face a ban.

Comparing to cricket in the 20th century and 21st century there is a huge difference as bat started to dominate the ball better than ever before. It collision between bat and ball has become a much-commented phenomenon in recent years.

The modern day cricket’s bats are heavy and wide that helped batsmen to battered bowlers unmercifully.

The rules of cricket provided that a bat can be no wider than 4.25 inches (10.8 cm) and no longer than 38 inches (96.5 cm).

However, a report last year conducted by Imperial College London, commissioned by the MCC, found that the length and thickness of bats increased over time.

This resulted in a “significantly greater moment of inertia (pick-up weight)” and better ‘sweet spot’ characteristics for newer bats.

“This gives a significant performance advantage,” the report found.

These bats are complimented by smaller boundaries that led to fastest ODI century (331st balls by AB de Villiers) and the highest score in ODI cricket (264 off 173 balls by Rohit Sharma).

ODI World Cup

One Day International World Cup which was invented in 1975 is the biggest ever cricket tournament ever. This tournament is the prime source of money for ICC and other countries who participate in this tournament. Sponsor and TV rights two are the biggest sources of money.

This tournament revived the interest of diminishing interests of the cracking audience. What followed was tremendous competition for the coveted trophy and the winner being given the status of world beaters for four years until the next event come.

West Indies were the first champion of World Cup before Australia started dominating the world as they have won five times, including their fifth triumph at Melbourne Cricket Ground.

In the first three edition, World Cup was a 60 overs’ game. But in the 1987 World Cup in India was a 50 overs World Cup. Allan Border’s Australian emerged champion that reckons Australian’s domination in world cricket and West Indies’s end.

1987 World Cup in India and Pakistan

Hosting the 1987 World Cup in the subcontinent for the first time is a history decision that changed the demography, geography and dimension of cricket.

Then BCCI president IS Bindra and his treasurer Jagmohan Dalmiya fought with their English counterparts. Literally , Dalmiya snatched the rights from officials of England, who were dubious of India and Pakistan’s capacity to host the World Cup.

This World Cup was the 50 overs games.  Australia were a champion in front of 12,0000 crazy cricket fans.

Total eight teams participated in this tournament. BCCI who coffer was empty before the tournament was ushered with money. Sponsors and TV broadcasters fought for the broadcasting rights that indirectly benefit BCCI.

This tournament also made Indian  fans carry as India were the defending champion of the previous edition.  This edition also indicates the rise of eastern imperialism in cricket. Indian’s 1.2 billion population who made cricket their religion started consuming everything that came along with cricket.

The success of this tournament helped BCCI to get the right to host the 1996 World Cup.

Bindra and Dalmiya’s decision to host the tournament made BCCI the richest cricket governing body in the world. The  tournament took place in 21 stadiums across India and Pakistan. 

T20 Cricket

This was the result of decreasing popularity of cricket in England. A research conduct by ECB found that cricket had been losing its popularity among the young generations only veteran fans came in the stadium. This research proved ECB to innovate the shorter format of the game.

It is now 12 years England and Wales Cricket Board  innovated T20 cricket that taken over the game in many aspects.

They came up with a 20 overs’ a side game with significant alteration, including fielding restrictions, batting and bowling power plays, the “free-hit” after a  no ball for overstepping.

In all respects, it was a departure from ‘normal’ cricket, with batsmen coming off a bench rather than  out of a pavilion, and emerging to the sound of a loud rock song as a personal theme tune.

Despite concerns from traditionalists, the format took off, and quickly spread to the international level.

Many believed the victory of India in the inaugural World Twenty20 final in South Africa in 2007 was a turning point – it led to the commercial juggernaut of the IPL, and leagues in more than a dozen countries around the world.

Some people think that the pendulum has swung too far, as the financial success of cricket internationally seems tied to more and more T20 matches.

But it has also led to a much more attacking attitude to cricket, and new strokes such as the ramp shot, the switch hit, and others.

The Third umpire

It was the first time when technology was introduced into the functional aspect of the game. The use of TV replays to introduce transparency to the game was a historic decision. Sachin Tendulkar  was the first batsman to be adjudged out by the TV umpire. It also meant less pressure on the field umpires which in turn ensured better decision making. With the quality of visual equipment improving the TV umpire also had better technology at his disposal.

The concept of Third Umpire was the brainchild of former Sri Lankan Test cricketer and cricket writer Mahinda Wijesinghe. The third umpire was first introduced in Test cricket in 1992 at Kingsmead in Durban with South Africa vs India series.

Sachin Tendulkar was the first batsman to be given out (run out) by Third umpire = television replays on the second day of the Test. Date? 14 November 1992. Tendulkar was dismissed for 11 runs.

Who was the first third umpire? there were two actually = Karl Liebenberg and Cyril Mitchley but Liebenberg gave the decision.

The doosra

An Urdu word it is one of the foxy tricks off spinners use.

It was Pakistan’s Saqlain Mushtaq who invented this bowling. But each and every bowler who tried to ball doosra earned a ban and ICC investigation.

The ICC began a review of bowling actions. A study filmed the world’s top bowlers, reassessed past cases, and sought to bring clarity to a complex area. The upshot was that the current bowling laws were unworkable. Some of the world’s greatest bowlers, past and present, whose bowling actions had never been questioned, turned out to be chuckers. The problem didn’t lie, for the most part, with the bowlers. The problem was the Laws, which had been written for the uniformity of machines not the natural biological variations of humans.

The law changed. One rule for all, 15 degrees of bend in the bowling arm, the level at which the human eye can detect a throw. Fair as you get. The doosra, in large part, did this, revolutionising an ancient law of cricket. It saved Murali, allowing the world to savour his record-breaking career. It saved off spin bowling, now a revived attacking art in all of the cricket’s forms. It filled the minds of the world’s best batsmen with dread from the most innocuous-looking deliveries; what could be more fascinating? It brought great joy to the world’s cricket public.

And, perhaps above all for supporters of Pakistan cricket and cricket lovers generally, it brought us the magic of Saeed Ajmal – a little thing that makes a big difference.

The reverse swing:

This swing, though, happens late, thus seems more pronounced, and gives batsmen little time to make adjustments. It is all the more difficult for a new batsman or a tailender to face, which explains the staggering number of dramatic collapses in Tests in the late 1980s and early ’90s.

Reverse swing involves so much meticulous devotion it is almost worship. You bounce the wrong side on the grass, and the rough side might lose it a roughness. You place a sweaty palm on the ball and you can kiss reverse swing goodbye.

To trace the evolution of reverse swing is much more difficult. Well before Sarfraz Nawaz made it famous, well before it was given a name, possibly well before it was considered a distinct phenomenon that merited a name, reverse swing was practised in the mohallas and maidans of Pakistan. Sikander Bakht, born in 1957, told Wisden Asia Cricket magazine in 2004 that he reversed it as a schoolboy.

Even in Australia there have been ancient mentions of reverse swing. Imran Khan, who was legendarily handed the art by Sarfraz, also credits Max Walker, who in turn credits Alan Connolly, a Victorian who played 29 Tests for Australia. Connolly was an old-fashioned quick who wanted to run in as hard and bowl as fast as he could, but he found little assistance from the pebbly MCG pitch of the 1960s. He is believed to have borrowed from baseball’s bad-old spitball the idea of loading one side of the ball up with “perspiration and saliva”.

It was only in the late 1970s and 1980s, though, that reverse swing began to be used consistently – allowance needs to be made here for matches not being so assiduously analysed back then as they are now. Imran tormented India in Karachi in 1982-83, stunning them with bursts of five wickets for three runs and three wickets for none in the same innings, after India had been 102 for 1 at tea. The image of Gundappa Viswanath shouldering arms to what looks like a harmless wide delivery only to see his off-stump knocked back is the stuff of legend.

Before that came Sarfraz’s show at the MCG – seven wickets for one run in the space of 33 deliveries – to skittle Australia’s chase of 382 after they had been 305 for 3, but the Wisden report doesn’t mention the word “reverse”.

The world at large might have been ignorant of reverse swing for a long time, but the new sultans of swing, Wasim Akram, and Waqar Younis, made sure it couldn’t look the other way in the late 1980s and the early ’90s. Starting with the series against New Zealand in 1990-91, series after series featured Wasim, Waqar and batting collapses unheard of. Teams would be going swimmingly at about 40 overs for the loss of one or two wickets, and then disintegrate spectacularly. Wasim took two hat-tricks in Sharjah, and once took four wickets in five balls against West Indies.

The initial reaction to all this was of suspicion, and perhaps further ignorance. Lawsuits have been filed, dirt has been carried in pockets, a Test has been called off, bottle caps have been credited, lozenges have been thought of as cricketing equipment… Whether the ball used to be tampered with or not, whether Pakistan alone did it or not, we will never know, but it will be pointed out – not without merit – that it all became kosher when Zaheer Khan and James Anderson and Brett Lee began to do it too.

The Day-Night Test

Traditionally, the cricket ball was red, allowing batsmen and fielders to see the ball. When the World Series Cricket started, the introduction of day-night cricket led to the use of a white ball and black sightscreen.

As pressure on Test cricket increased due to the popularity of T20,and decreasing popularity of the game ICC had been moving towards the idea of a trial day-night Test match.

To this end, versions of pink balls had been trialled as far back as 2008, in a Queensland Women v Western Australia Women match in Brisbane.

In 2010, the trials stepped up a notch, with pink balls used for the first time in day-nighters in Caribbean first-class cricket, the IPL (in nets) and Abu Dhabi.

As Kookaburra continued to tinker with the pink ball prototype, it was trialled in day-night Sheffield Shield matches.

Now, seven years after its debut, the pink ball is about to be used for the first time in a day-night Test match between Australia and New Zealand at Adelaide Oval. Now many teams ready to embrace the day-night Test in 2016. India will host New Zealand later this year.

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