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“Short cricket”—howzat?The thought occurred to me while mulling my anger over the limp legacy of magnificent white-elephant stadia built for the pleasure and profit-taking of Fifa, that perhaps this is a case of necessity being the mother of invention. Why not evolve cricket to a smaller field?
The game of cricket as we know it developed over a couple hundred years from the village greens of England. The sizes of the fields varied and only in recent times have found a semblance of uniformity. (The lovely Oaks area of Newlands was cut down to make way for a longer boundary, but in Holland, they even left one tree standing inside the field!)
So, field size is one thing. The time factor and nature of the game
is another.
To make the game more attractive as a television package, classic whites (or creams) worn by both sides gave way to dazzling coloured outfits bearing sponsors’ logos, with names and numbers to identify players
more readily.
The length of the game has tightened now to 20 or 50 overs, which packs in the crowds, makes for far more exciting finishes, and now results in great viewing and sponsor opportunities – innovations of Hawk Eye and stump cameras (with more on the way) make an old-timer lament: “It’s just not cricket!” But new blood bellows: “Howzat?!”
So, I’m proposing right now a new form of the game and you’re reading it for the first time in Leadership, April edition 2010. Shrink the size of the ground. Play cricket on a soccer field 50 metres wide by 100 metres long.
Rugby was invented on this format, and many junior schools play rugby, soccer and cricket on the same sized field. (Conversely, Australian Rules Football – that spectacular, high-scoring game – was invented first on the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a simple level clearing between the trees to keep cricketers fit in winter.)
Size matters. The new game format would change radically, with a different point scoring for boundaries, but with the same skills required from bowlers and batsmen. “Short cricket” then could be played on
football fields.
It’s an idea. Use it, don’t use it. Who knows where ideas lead? One day, we could see it being played to packed audiences in multibillion-rand
Fifa stadia.
Royson Lamond
