So one of my sports channels is airing Indian Premier League cricket matches, and I’ve taken to watching them occasionally. As a proper Canadian I can speak with some authority on the intricacies of curling strategy, or debate the merits of modifying icing rules in hockey, but cricket is completely foreign to me.
So, I’ve read up on the rules and after watching a couple matches I have the basics down and can follow along well enough. But I have some questions (probably I’ll use some terminology wrong, please correct me):
Why do the winners of the coin flip choose to bat first? While I could see that in longer format cricket there’d be little strategic value in knowing how many runs you need and there might be some advantage to batters not having just burned a bunch of energy bowling, in T20 it seems like it would be more valuable to know whether you can bat defensively or whether you have to swing for the fences, as they’d say in baseball.
There are fielding restrictions in the first six overs that are apparently supposed to make it easier to score, and yet in the matches I’ve seen it’s been the late overs where teams pile on the runs. Is this because the teams are using their best bowlers in the early overs and they’re just that much harder to hit?
Are batting orders just best to worst, or are there other considerations?
How specialized are the bowlers? Are the top bowlers utterly useless with a bat, as ace pitchers in baseball are expected to be, or are they expected to acquit themselves reasonably when batting? How much worse as bowlers are the “all-rounders” who bowl but are higher up in the batting order?
Do teams actively seek out a mix of fast bowlers and spinners? That is, is there strategic value in having a mix of bowling styles, or would you be perfectly happy with 5 fast bowlers so long as they were all really good?
How common is it to take 10 wickets in T20? I presume that ends a team’s batting, but the commentators didn’t even mention the possibility of the Super Kings batting overs being cut short when they gave up their 8th wicket with 3 overs remaining and I presume their second-worst batter coming on the field.
I probably have more questions, but I don’t know what they are yet.
Wow! all good questions but I’ll start off by saying each one of those is a full thread by itself.
No matter. There are plenty of us on this board that enjoy discussing the finer points of this king of sports.
Firstly this particular short form of the game almost stands by itself as a different sport and all your questions could be answered differently for different forms of the game but one thing at a time. Let’s see if we can shed some light on the concept of T20 and who knows? perhaps this will prove something of a gateway sport for you.
I’ll pick no 2. first, others will be along for the rest I’m sure.
Some reasons for the faster run rate at the end of the innings are
a) You have wickets in hand and feel you can hit out more and take greater risk (you may also have batsmen in who have “played themselves in” and are attuned to batting.
b) The bowlers are more tired and offer more chances (your real quality strike bowlers will be the ones used in peak condition at the start of the innings…as you correctly suspect)
c) The ball condition changes, slows somewhat and again becomes easier to hit.
The fielding restrictions go someway to offsetting a naturally conservative approach in the early overs.
Its simply the toss. And whether they choose to bat or bowl first depends on various factors (conditions, strengths of the teams etc).
Early over the ball is new and swinging more, the batman are not set and losing early wickets can really pile on the pressure. In the later over, if you have wickets in hand you can take a risk and attack. The fielding restrictions are to get around the tendancy of defensive batting early on.
While generally lower order batsman are less skilled, typically a teams best batsman might not bat first (and indeed usually do not). The top order (the two openers and the no 3) have to see off the new ball, build an innings and bat for a long haul. The middle order (4-6) have to build on a foundation or maange a crises depending on the tactical scenario presented, The lower order (7-9) need to be able to bat a bit and add to runs, mount a rearguard action etc. The tail (10,11 and sometimes 9) well… Openers rarely come in the middle order and middle order never opens. SKill set and proficieny determines your position, not just skill.
Furthermore the order can and is changed during an innings by the captain. If its a track which is conducive the spin,you might send in a player who handles spin well ahead of someone who struggles. If accleration is needed, the guy who is an attacking bat is often sent in ahead of more skilled but methodical players.
Usually. Some bowlers can bat a bit, some fairly well, but usually you will not depend on them to win you matches. However cricket has a long tradition of “all rounders” players who are proficient with both bat and ball. Imran Khan, Kapil Dev, Ian Botham, Richard Hadlee, Gary Sobers, Wasim Akram, Jacques Kallis etc come to mind. Each of the above players was worth his place with either bat or ball.Some other bowlers could bat well, but it was a plus and on its own not enough; Shaun Pollack or Saqlain Mushtaq. FInally, you have players who can bowl and bat a bit or as I perfer to say, not do either well.
Yes. A balanced bowling attack keeps the opposition on its toes. That said, conditions also play a role, there are some places where having 5 fast bolwers would be a real advantage, Perth for example or where having more spinners would be effective, the non Pakistan sub continent comes to mind or if your assets in one type are poor.
Fairly common but less so than other forms.
BTW, stop watching IPL and T20 cricket generally. Its a farce.
I think you overestimate the range of televised cricket available to me, and I’m not sufficiently enthralled to go hunting for internet streams.
Please explain this changing ball thing to me. I take it that each side of each inning is played with a single ball? I hadn’t noticed that the ball was retrieved from the stands after 6’s. How and why does the ball change so much?
In baseball the ball is changed pretty much every time it’s been hit or gets dirty, and the average ball only lasts for about 6 pitches.
While cricket balls are quite a bit harder than baseballs they’re still made of leather and getting hit by wooden bats at 80-90 mph takes a toll on them. In cricket the ball will only be changed if it’s bashed severely out of shape or after 80+ overs (in tests). After 10+ overs the ball will have lost most of its shine (despite the fielding teams best efforts) and will behave noticeably differently from a brand new ball. While it’s not that big an issue in 20/20 cricket the condition of the ball is a big factor in bowler’s decision making in the longer form of the game.
A cricket ball is slightly smaller than a baseball but harder, denser and heavier with a more pronounced single seam and over the course of an innings it will go through various phases of life and behaviour that lends itself to different types of bowling. When new a fast bowler can take advantage of the still hard ball and proud seam to carry velocity to the batsman and induce movement off the ground.
Later on, the asymmetric shine and worn conditions of the ball can be used to provoke “reverse swing” a black art not fully understood but something that seems to arise from canny exploitation of ball condition, suitable bowling speed and seam position and friendly atmospheric conditions.
Those are just a few of the variables which don’t even start to touch upon deteriorating pitch conditions or pure
“spin” bowling…have you got all night?
Time to resurrect a very old story. Probably not true, but fun.
There was a golf tournament being televised in the US, and for some reason, Australian golfer Wayne Grady (I think) was in the commentary box. Grady is a cricket nut, and said he had just been in the West Indies to watch a Test Cricket match.
US golf commentator: ‘We’ve got a five-minute break here. Wayne, can you explain the attraction of cricket in that time?’.
Grady: ‘No’.
Hey, if you mean Stuart Broad just come out and say it!
What an all rounder can do (and a keeper/batsman a la Prior) is give the captain room for manoeuvre in their team selection.
“do I go for bowlers or batsmen?” in the case of a good enough all-rounder the answer in any case is “yes”
While I sort of agree with you I think we have to be fair to those without any real exposure to cricket. Would I suggest that a newbie attempts a test match as an introduction? Nope.
T20 at least gives a feel for the sport even if it lacks the subtle ebb and flow of the full-length game. In literary terms, T20 is a hard-hitting editorial. Test Cricket is “Great Expectations” (feel free to insert your prefered beloved epic novel at this point)
I personally don’t enjoy or watch T20 cricket either, but I completely agree with you here. For those not traditionally exposed to cricket, it is definitely the form to go to first. In fact, the one redeeming feature of T20, and the bloody IPL, is how it is drawing audiences that have usually found cricket a turn off. Girls in bars for one thing
ETA: And of course, the OP for another. Hope you enjoy the game!
I am much less knowledgable about cricket than the other respondents, but I’ll add a few points:
Agreed that there is a small but significant strategic advantage (in any sport) of knowing what your target is, as opposed to setting that target. In most cricket matches, this advantage is over-ridden by considering the conditions. For example, in T20, day/night games are fairly common, where the first team bats in the late-afternoon/early evening, and the second team bats largely after dark. Often, dew will fall during this period which can create more swing for the faster bowlers, making it harder for the batsmen. In addition, even with the best modern floodlights it remains easier for batsmen to see the ball in daylight. As such, these could be very valid reasons for a team choosing to bat first having won the toss. There can also be concerns about the pitch deteriorating (thus making batting more difficult) which means it’s best to bat first, but this is less likely to be a consideration in T20.
It happens occasionally if pitch conditions (or availability of players) demands it, but it is rare to filed only fast bowlers/spinners. This is because most batsmen prefer to play against one or the other, so as captain of the bowling team it’s important to have both options available. Also, the changing condition of both ball and pitch tends to mean fast bowlers are more effective early on, and spinners come into their own later. So if you had only fast bowlers, you might get a few wickets early on, but towards the end of the innings you could concede more runs than if you had a good spinner keeping things tight.
The ratio of runs to wickets, as you will already know, is high - simply put, you usually have a lot more scoring opportunities as the batting side, than the bowling side have wicket-taking opportunities. 20 overs is not a long time to get 10 wickets, you’d have to average one every 2 overs (12 balls) and with any kind of competent batting, that just doesn’t happen in the normal scheme of things. Yes, there is a risl of it happening in the situation you describe (and it does in fact occur frequently), but even the lower-order batsmen these days have a good level of competence. Another factor might be that in T20, some of the tactics you can use to get a batsmen out in a test match are not viable. For example, in tests you can bowl short balls (those that bounce high towards the batsmen’s chest/head level) which can intimidate a batsment and force them into a mistake - in T20 this would be a no-ball (which means not only a free run added to the score of the batting side, but also an extra ball where the batsment can have a go at it without risking getting out, as the “wicket” would not count - this is known as a “free hit”). Or bowling just wide of the off stump, trying to tempt the batsmen into playing the ball rather than leaving it (and thus possibly edging a catch to the wicketkeeper or slips) would just be called a wide in T20.
Usually due to the playing conditions. The pitch will get more worn and harder to bat on as the game goes on, although this effect isn’t anywhere near as pronounced in T20 as it is in Tests.
The reason that more runs are scored in the latter stages of the innings is because of increased urgency. Batting teams are generally cautious in the early stages, laying a platform so that they can take risks later on. To put it another way, if you lose three wickets in the first over of the innings that is more damaging than losing three wickets in the last over of the innings.
The opening batters in the lineup are generally those with the technique to see off the new ball. 3 and 4 are usually the best batters in the side, 5 and 6 are players who can hit out and really do some damage if the situation is right, or they’re the type of players who can protect the weaker batters to come. Again, this means far less in T20 than it does in Tests.
Usually four specialist bowlers are picked. They bat at 8-11 and any runs they get are largely a bonus. But it’s highly unlikely that more than 1 or 2 of them will be entirely useless with the bat. ie The #11 usually has a batting average less than 10, but the #8 often averages around 20. The difficulty here lies in the fact that in shorter forms of the game a fifth bowler is necessary to bowl the full allotment of overs.
The mixture of fast bowlers and spinners largely depends on the pitch. There is a vast difference between a Perth or Trent Bridge (Nottingham) pitch which favours fast bowlers and a sub-continent pitch which favours spinners. That being said, the great West Indian teams from the mid '70s to the early '90s always played four quicks, and the great Australian sides of '89-'07 would never have left out their best spinner Shane Warne.
I don’t watch much T20, so I’m not sure how often a team gets bowled out. This gets back to point 2), though. If your team loses all of its wickets when batting, it possibly took too many risks early in its innings.
It continues to tickle me that we use the term “quick” for those giants of the game. Just so the OP understands, that period saw the Windies with perhaps the greatest in-depth line-up of fast…brutally fast, bowlers that cricket has ever seen.
Michael Holding was nicknamed “whispering death” and he is a nice guy!
So the fact that the they picked fast bowlers was not them adhering to a perfect strategic approach to cricket, merely that they bent strategy to the strengths that they already had.
Actually, the best bowlers tend to bowl at the death - at the end - exactly because this is when you don’t want the batsmen to get away. The organisers have to introduce incentives to get the batsmen to hit out early (such as the fielding restrictions) because otherwise the risk of getting out is too great.
T20 batting is a game of the management of tight resources. Batsmen that have been at the crease for a few overs are seen as being better able to cope with conditions, and so you’ll often see a period of settling in. In a test match, that might take all morning, but in a T20 you don’t have it. Picking the moment to accelerate your scoring is a vital part of your strategy.
This one really does depend on the team, but ideally (in my opinion) you want to have 3 or 4 bowlers who are in the team for their bowling, and another 1 or two all-rounders who can actually bowl. In 50-over ODI cricket you often see teams hiding a few overs of an average bowler in the middle - this is one dull tactic that T20 seems free of, and you really do need good bowling to do well.
The statsguru search only lets you search International matches, sadly, but it suggests that, of the 312 games of T20 played at that level, 99 have resulted in a team losing 10 wickets. That team has gone on to win 7 times:
Note that a lot of International T20 games are often played between teams of very different skill levels, so it may (and probably does) skew the results.
I find high scoring test matches or test matches in the sub-continent boring to watch. I watch IPL for my favorite or most explosive players and for the exciting finishes that it provides. Game gets over in 3 hrs and they present it well I think. Also players of different countries playing in the same team like Sachin and Ponting, Gayle, Kohli and AB Devilliars, Dhoni and Hussey, etc etc. I like that. I do not support any particular team.
@Gorsnak which are the commentators you get to hear?? If you get the same as we do, then put your TV on mute when L Shivaramakrishnan, Ramiz Raja, Harsha Bhogle or Ravi Shastri are on-air. they are atrocious.
I couldn’t give you names of commentators, but it’s a mix of Indian and Brit accents - not the same guys for every match. However atrocious they might be, rest assured they know a lot more about what’s going on than I do!
Thanks for all the answers, and by all means keep talking. Saw a match last night go to a super over tiebreak, which I’m sure is as anathema to cricket purists as resolving ties in hockey by means of shootouts or 4-on-4 OT is to proper Canadian hockey fans. I would presume test cricket doesn’t bother to have a tiebreak mechanism because it never needs one?
Anyways, was watching some things more closely and noticed many of the things mentioned - lack of runs early more because the batsmen weren’t really swinging than anything else, protecting the wicket and not taking chances. More carefully noted who the top bowlers were and saw their overs spread about in strategic fashion that I hadn’t appreciated in earlier matches. Possibly because the captains in those earlier matches were idiots, but more likely because I couldn’t tell what they were doing.
Are all the West Indies players monstrously huge, or is it just the couple I’ve noticed so far because they stick out head and shoulders above their teammates? (Gayle and Pollard)
If a Test match is tied, that result stands. Test matches are played in series of 2 - 5 matches, generally, and drawn or tied games just don’t contribute to the series result.
I don’t know the other West Indian players in the IPL this year, but Chris Gayle is a big man, and Pollard is 3" taller again. It can be odd, actually, as cricket players tend to be big these days but the wicketkeeper tends to look like a small child in a team huddle.
It’s also important to point out that in cricket draws can be the most exciting matches. I’m not from India or the Caribbean, but watching the last hour of this match on a stream:
Five days of courage and fight from both sides, and it came down to that amazingly intense finish where in the dying moments all four results (Indian win, West Indian win, Draw, Tie) were possible.
I don’t usually watch sports online, but for some reason I watched the end of that match. And it was truly wonderful.
I should have bought a lottery ticket that day. So glad I saw that.
Despite the number of people who believe that the fielding restrictions are designed to encourage the batsmen to hit out, they are, in fact, fielding restrictions - designed to prevent the fielding side setting extremely defensive fields and concentrating solely on preventing the batting team from scoring runs.
They originated in the early days of international one day cricket and I assume were an Australian invention. I recall England refusing to accept the conditions for a series in Australia and we ended up with all the fieldsmen (and the wicketkeeper) on the boundary in one game.
Yes. In fact the last day of a match with one team trying to save it and the other attempting to put it beyond doubt is some of the best cricket there is. Both sides take chances they would not otherwise.
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Despite the number of people who believe that the fielding restrictions are designed to encourage the batsmen to hit out, they are, in fact, fielding restrictions - designed to prevent the fielding side setting extremely defensive fields and concentrating solely on preventing the batting team from scoring runs
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They are designed to encourage attacking play, otherwise the first bit of an ODI will be like the first session of a test match, both sides playing in a circumspect manner.
