On Declarations:
England 393/8d & 273
Australia 386 & 282/8
Australia won by 2 wickets
What was that?! Seriously!
England losing the opening Test Match against Australia in the 2023 Ashes series had all the inevitability of the 06:56 express service to St Pancras hitting an egg which someone had delicately placed upon the railway line. It had no chance and the results were messy and entirely expected and the worst thing is that England did it to themselves.
England was destined to lose this Test Match, the very second that Ben Stokes had a brain explosion and decided to declare the First Innings closed on Day One. In no world is this sensible and under no circumstances should this have been allowed to happen. If h spoke to anyone, they should have quietly taken him aside, spoken to him quietly, and then beat him repeatedly with a banana as part of a comedy humiliation ritual.
Granted that I do not play and have never played First-Class cricket. Also granted that my highest ever score was a paltry 107 not out in B-Grade, after spending a day tickling the ball to Fine Leg and Third Man and occasionally bashing the ball to Cow Corner and Yoik Town; which means that I have all the poise and grace with the bat of a diseased albatross crashing to the ground. My most notable feat with the ball was taking all 10 wickets in an innings after losing my patience with the captain, and his challenge to me was if I thought that I could do a better job then I should prove it; so I did. I have however watched a lot of cricket over the years and so even from my position on the couch at stupid o'clock in the morning in a freezing Sydney winter, I can still perfectly explain why England lost.
Cricket is about time. England disrespected time.
Test Cricket is composed of five days, made up of three sessions of 30 overs each. Hold this thought, it will become important. The chief weapons of cricket are not fear and surprise but the number of days and overs left. Time is so important that even the batters hitting balls and the bowlers bowling them are actually secondary to the prime task of cricket, which is time management.
The only way to win a Test Match is to take 20 wickets.
In principle, a declaration is made for no other purpose than to give your own bowlers ample time to take those 20 wickets from the opposition, by actively destroying your own. Irrespective of how many wickets have fallen in your own innings, at the point that an innings is declared closed, the actual effective number of wickets that have fallen, are 10. Two scores that are 412/7 declared and 412 all not, are functionally identical.
Given this, we can apply some basic principles to when a declaration should be made for any innings:
1st Innings - no earlier than Day 3, 45 overs.
2nd Innings - no earlier than Day 3, 45 overs.
3rd Innings - no earlier than Day 4, 66 overs.
4th Innings - never.
A Test Match is five days long. It follows that an innings should ideally be completed in one and a quarter days. However, the only reason which is sensible to make a declaration, is to give yourself ample time to take 20 wickets. If you declare any early than the times suggested above, then what happens is that you give time to the opposition to score runs. However even scoring runs is actually a secondary act to the prime task of cricket, which is time management. What declaring early does, is give time to the opposition.
There are no circumstances under which anyone should declare on Day One. It is as stupid as declaring in a T20 or One Day International match. It isn't against the rules but it is so monumentally stupid that nobody does it. What Ben Stokes did by declaring early, was give time to the Australians; and effectively signed his own death warrant.
Slow Over-Rates:
Cricket is about time.
Batters hitting balls and the bowlers bowling them are actually secondary to the prime task of cricket, which is time management. What does this have to do with a fielding side not getting through their overs?
A slow over rate, where less than 15 overs in an hour have been bowled, is purely about stealing time away from the batting side. Time spent in the middle is the way by which the batting side accumulates runs. The only way that the batting side can accumulate runs is if the ball is in play and the ball is put into play by virtue of it being bowled.
If close of play is 17:30 and the bowling side has only bowled 86 overs for the day, then what they have effectively done is cheated the batting side out of 16 minutes. Since the results of Test Matches have actually swung on the difference of 1 or 2 runs, then stealing 16 minutes, or even 4 minutes away, is nothing less than pure naked thievery.
Any argument about entertainment value for the spectators, or TV commitments, are all side-shows to the crime being perpetrated in the middle. Cricket is one of the few games which has contained within the laws that the game is to be played according to "the spirit of the game". Stealing time by slow over rates, violates the spirit of cricket.
Everyone would cry "blue murder" and maybe "Havoc! Let slip the dogs of war!" if Manchester United decided to declare a football match closed at the 86 minute mark because they were winning 1-0. Football matches swing on the difference of 1 goal; so football solves the problem through the mechanism of "time added". Cricket however, dispenses time in discrete units called 'balls' and 'overs'.
The answer to a slow over rate is obvious. Make them play out the number of overs for the day. That's it. If a fielding side hasn't got through the required number of overs in a day, yes fine them, but also make them play on. Let them deal with the TV networks. The umpires who are the sole arbiters of space and time and here and now, have the power to make players play.
Alternatively (and I find this solution quite quite delicious) since the law provides 5 penalty runs for various offences, if a fielding side fails to bowl 90 overs in a day, the umpire should award 5 penalty runs per ball not bowled. If close of play is 17:30 and the bowling side has only bowled 86 overs for the day, then would they do that again if they knew that they were giving away 120 runs? Of course not. A fielding side would be horrified to give away 120 runs in five overs and quite rightly so. If someone can only be made to do something because of the law and the weight of force which stands behind it, then they are no better than an animal. Give them the option. 5 runs per ball not bowled, or bowl out the day. Watch sides bowl through their overs quick-smart!
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