Perhaps it’s time for one day cricket to adopt a tie breaker
Posted by Hamish McBrearty on December 31st, 2008
As the southern summer heats up and players from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and the West Indies prepare to don the coloured uniforms for their respecive ODI series, perhaps it’s time for cricket to adopt a tiebreaker in these games.
There is nothing more exciting than a game being decided by the last swing of the bat in a One Dayer, but occasionally that one swing can’t propel either team to victory. While ties are unusual in One Day cricket, happening in around one out of 200 matches, they do feel like a let down for both sets of supporters.
One Day cricket was born as a television spectacle with an emphasis on entertainment and recent innovations, such as the power plays, have been brought in to enhance the entertainment factor. The most recent change to the game sees one of the power plays in the control of the batting team, the intention of this change is so that teams can take a power play late in the innings and score runs with some big hitting. Again, all about entertainment.
In the short short form of the game, Twenty20, there have been just three international games which have finished in a tie. Two of these ties were broken by a “bowl-off” while the most recent one, between New Zealand and the West Indies, was decided by a “one over eliminator”.
For mine, the bowl off always felt somewhat ill-conceived as five bowlers from each team had two attempts at hitting unguarded stumps. Cricket is primarily about a contest between the batsman and the bowler, and if you take the batsman away from the contest it ceases to be cricket.
Now the one over eliminator seems to be an almost perfect way to decide ties. Both teams nominate three batsman and one bowler, then attempt to score as many runs as possible. Chris Gayle’s huge hitting provided wonderful drama at Eden Park, while New Zealand’s Jacob Oram and Jesse Ryder both smashed balls over the boundaries, they then both got out handing the West Indies the win.
The only thing not to like about the one over eliminator is the name. For some reason the name “eliminator” conjures up memories of American Gladiators in my head, perhaps “Single Over Shootout” might be a better name. In fact, I think I might have to copyright that myself.
Many other sports have tie breakers in their laws, specifically to increase the tension and drama of a close match. Football has the penalty shootout, perhaps the most pressure in all of sports, while rugby league and NFL have sudden death extra time, when every pass, run and kick has the potential to end the game. Why shouldn’t cricket follow suit and give the fans the most exciting finish possible, even in the event of a tie.
Posted in New Zealand, cricket, opinion | 1 Comment »

