ENG - 498/4 def.
NED - 266 ao. (49.4ov)
I do not mean to take anything away from Phil Salt (122), Dawid Malan (125), or Jos Buttler (162*), who all scored centuries against the Netherlands because those runs where there to be taken. I do not wish to take anything away from the Netherlands either, who although lost, stil posted a score of 266; which is something to be proud of.
However, when England beat the Netherlands at the weekend and posted a total of 498/6 off of 50 overs, a third of the pundits thought that this England side is destined for greatness (it probably isn't), a third of the pundits questioned why England should have been playing the Netherlands in the first place (despite this very obviously being for the good of the game), and a third of the pundits questioned whether T20 has created harm for the other forms of the game (not really).
I stand like a lone clarion, yelling into the void because I ask a question which has to do with one of the fundamentals of the game. I ask about the value of scoring a boundary.
A batting side in cricket, likely derives most of its runs in boundary fours and boundary sixes. For me, this is the same kind of question, as the mechanics of basketball where there are far more 3-point shots being fired at the hoop than 2-point shots these days. Landing 3-point shots means that you only need a completion rate of 66% to get the same number of points as you do from 2-point shots. Cricket which has a similar ratio for boundary sixes and boundary fours, also means that you only need a completion rate of 66% to get the same number of 6s as you do from 4s. Basketball has been fundamentally changed over the past decade and a half because people like me read the rules and then worked out where the value for point scoring opportunity likes and then coached the players accordingly.
The biggest and most obvious difference between basketball and cricket is that basketball rewards accuracy; so the idea that you'd score more points from further away, is sensible but in cricket, because the players are at the middle and the boundary is all around them, then accuracy isn't rewarded as much as the ability to hit the ball further.
The other big difference is that in games where there are innings and not where the teams play directly against each other, is that the score of the team batting second is obviously a dependent variable; with their win condition being set by the team that batted first. The scores of teams batting second, always has an upper bound, determined by the score set by the team batting first. Therefore, graphing these scores is stupid and a waste of time. Taking the scores of the team batting first on the other hand gives us a useful graph to look at; this is now shown below:
One Day International (ODI) scores actually seem to show a downward trend in the early years of ODI cricket and especially with the introduction of the tri-series World Series Cricket in Australia. The reason for this is that the professionalism of the game rose through the roof as international cricket for the first time was flush with cash. This increased professionalism then led to the first fielding coaches being employed and because fielding improved at a faster rate than either batting or bowling skills, then the seemingly boring art of fielding took off.
From about 1992/3, the graph shoots upwards forever and the single biggest reason for the sudden and dramatic turnaround in scores and the turning point in 1992, has nothing to to with the skills of any of the players but rather, the playing fields themselves.
Cricket is a sport which is played on an oval with a boundary. Hitting the ball to the boundary gains the batting side 4 runs and hitting the ball over the boundary gains the batting side 6 runs. At parish, church, and local district level, the boundary is determined by temporary markers and ropes which are laid out. However, anything higher than this such as provincial, state, and international cricket, is played at permanent venues where the field is bound by fences.
A cricket field for a professional player, is in fact their workplace and as such, actually falls under relevant workplace safety laws. In the bad old days, this meant that there wasn't any workplace law requiring players to have protective equipment such as helmets and body armor. However, as a cricket field is a workplace and falls under relevant workplace safety laws, then this means that the field itself had to be made safer.
By bringing in boundary ropes, usually overlaid with foam blocks which are covered in advertising, the risk of injury to the players from sliding into the fences, was vastly diminished. Far far far less injuries occurred due to players sliding across the grass and into the boundary, when the boundary was now a moveable and deformable thing; rather than a solid immovable object such as a concrete drain or a wooden picket fence.
Bringing in the ropes also had the twin effect of making boundary fours easier to hit as the distance from the bat to the boundary was slightly shortened but making boundary sixes immensely easier to hit. A boundary six not only has slightly less distance to travel across the plane but also vertically as in some instances such as the MCG, the boundary fence with advertising hoardings was as much as five feet tall. A boundary six from the introduction of the ropes for the 1992/3 season, was in effect made 31% easier to hit.
When you have boundary sixes being scored where there may in the past have only been a boundary four or even an all-run two, then the reward for the same shot has increased by 50% and 200% in some instances. If you change the rewards for doing a thing in a game, as well as seeing an increased reliability in the players doing the thing, then the total rewards for doing the thing should increase and they do and have done.
Immediately we run into the old excuse that "it is the same for both sides" and whilst that is absolutely true, this never addresses the goodness or badness of the actual thing itself.
T20 cricket was invented to solve the perceived problem of fans becoming bored during an ODI match and by shortening the game to just 40% of the match duration, it is hoped that every single moment is critical. The skills gained in the T20 game have naturally spilled back into the 50-over ODI and test formats of the game and whereas Test Cricket retains its character by bashing people's attention and will into the ground, ODIs are no longer the thing which ebbed and flowed like they used to be.
An even further increased professionalism has led to batters who can now pummel the ball outside of the boundary on a semi-reliable basis; which means that batting is now a skill which has overtaken both bowling and fielding. At the same time, the available rewards for doing the same act of hitting a ball are more abundant.
The truth is that I have played at grounds where there have been local rules in play because of the oddness of the grounds. There was one ground which had a long jump pit in it; which the local cricket rules assumed was worth 3 runs and the boundary sort of came in at that point. Another ground was very short on one side because of a canal and a very very high chain-link fence. Local rules meant that the fence was the boundary and worth a paltry 2 runs but normal boundary rules applied for the rest of the field.
At international level in a Super 8's match, there are boundary fours and boundary eights. It used to be at the Super 8's tournament at Hong Kong, that hitting the ball into the tennis courts which adjoined the oval was worth 8 and out.
If cricket has no problem in applying local rules for the value of boundaries depending then if I was Grand Poohbah and Lord High Everything Else with a seat on the Privy Council and a significant amount of power to change the laws of cricket, then I would seriously look at reducing the rewards for hitting a boundary, to 3 and 4. If a boundary is so much easier to hit, then that says to me that the rewards should be less for doing so. Purists would naturally be outraged but purists are naturally outraged at anything.
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