Time to bat for the bowlers!

The Netherlands' total of 90 in 21 overs or 126 balls is less than Glenn Maxwell’s individual score of 106 in 44 balls or David Warner’s 104 in 93 deliveries.

The Cricket World Cup over the years has seen some one-sided games. But none more than the 309-run defeat that Australia inflicted on The Netherlands in Delhi on Wednesday.

While it was the second target of 400 set in this World Cup following South Africa’s total of 399/7 in Mumbai last Saturday. The margin of victory (309 runs) is more than 37 team totals from 48 innings in 24 matches at exactly the halfway stage in this World Cup.

The Netherlands' total of 90 in 21 overs or 126 balls is less than Glenn Maxwell’s individual score of 106 in 44 balls or David Warner’s 104 in 93 deliveries.

There have been 12 totals of 300-plus so far including six in excess of 350 and one above 400. These go on to show that this World Cup has been predominantly batsmen-friendly with the bowlers, barring a handful of them, taking the stick from the batsmen.

A total of 12,562 runs have been scored and 362 wickets scalped from 24 matches so far for an average of 34.70, which is not bad for a batsman. This is fractionally higher than the average batsman’s score of 34.08 in the entire 2019 World Cup in England.

Surprisingly, the bowlers’ efforts have gone unrewarded. The Indian team is hard done by the International Cricket Council as two of their efforts – against Australia and Pakistan – were not acknowledged. The Indians bowled brilliantly to dismiss Australia and Pakistan for 199 and 191, respectively, only for the ICC to rate the pitches as ‘average’ while the others got better ratings.

As it is, the rules heavily favour the batsmen with the fielding restrictions and only five fielders allowed outside the 30-yard circle for the last 10 overs of the innings. Pity, the bowlers, who sometimes are just like bowling machines, delivering the ball and getting thrashed all over the park on batting-friendly pitches. Add to it, the boundary markings are brought in to make it only 65m to 70m on average.

Except for the assistance to spinners in India’s first match against Australia in Chennai, the rest of the pitches were flat with almost nothing on it for the bowlers. The Delhi, Ahmedabad and Pune tracks for the India matches were so flat that credit must be given to the Indian bowlers for restricting the opposition and chasing them with ease in all of them.

The other non-India matches have all been batting friendly. Sri Lanka replied to South Africa’s 428 for five with 326 for a match aggregate of 754 runs in Delhi. Pakistan successfully chased down Sri Lanka’s 344/9 with 10 deliveries to spare in Hyderabad. South Africa posted back-to-back 350-plus totals at the Wankhede Stadium.

No total is safe these days and captains tend to bat second because of the better chance of chasing on these flat tracks, barring a few miscalculations or wrong decisions like England’s Jos Buttler did against South Africa in Mumbai’s first match when the Proteas amassed 399 for 7 and England folded up for 170.

Whatever the nature of the pitch, the bowlers are going to be hit if they bowl full tosses and short pitches like The Netherlands and Bangladesh bowlers fed Australia’s Maxwell and South Africa’s Heinrich Klaasen, respectively, with. While South Africa ran amok, smashing 144 runs in the last 10 overs, Australia hit 133 in their last 10 overs or 87 runs in the last five.

India’s head coach Rahul Dravid did not hide his disappointment at the ICC ratings and said on the eve of the match against New Zealand in Dharamsala last weekend: “I think you have to see different skills on display as well. It's not about wanting to see only fours and sixes being hit. Then, why are the bowlers here? All we want to see is sixes and fours being hit in 350 and they are rated as good wickets, then I disagree.”

Tweak rules for better contests
Echoing Dravid’s views is former India all-rounder Sunil Joshi. Dravid’s India and Karnataka team-mate, Joshi told Moneycontrol: “I am on the same page as Rahul on this. If people want to see fours and sixes, go to T20s. Fifty-over format is skills format. Spinners have done well in this tournament as proved by the top two highest wicket-takers in this World Cup so far (Adam Zampa, 13 and Mitchell Santner, 12). The foreign players are more used to playing in India because of the IPL. They understand the nature of the pitches and conditions. If you have good skills, you will do well.”

Joshi, currently coach of the Uttar Pradesh State team in the national competitions, hoped to see some rules tweaked in favour of the bowlers as it is heavily batting-friendly. “Why not have five fielders outside the 30-yard circle for a major part of the match? The earlier fielding restrictions were such that you had two outside the circle and two in catching positions for the first 15 overs and then five fielders outside the 30-yard circle for the remaining part of the innings,” said Joshi, who was the spin bowling coach of Bangladesh in the 2019 World Cup in England.

‘You expect batting-friendly conditions in sub-continent’

Former India opening batsman and currently batting coach of the Bangladesh under-19 team, Wasim Jaffer told Moneycontrol from Bangladesh on Wednesday that you expect tall scores from ODIs in India.

Jaffer, who is also the batting coach of Punjab Kings in the IPL, said: “When the World Cup is played in the sub-continent, you expect conditions to be more batting friendly. Of course, it will get challenging in some venues. The two teams don’t match up in the same way, that’s why we see more one-sided games. We have not seen a very close game yet where the game has gone to the wire. Either teams are making really very big scores or below-par totals.”

Jaffer felt that this trend of tall scores and one-sided contests are not ideal for one-dayers. He said: “It is actually not good for one-day cricket where one team gets 400 and the other team is out for less than 200. You want 270 or 280 and that gets exciting. You want to see those kinds of games where you want the other team to come close to the target even if someone gets 350.”

The former opener who scored two Test double hundreds in his international career from 2000 to 2008, added that the unorthodox style of batting creeping from T20 to ODIs is not surprising. He said: “T20 batting style is creeping into Test cricket, let alone ODIs. You expect the batsmen to be brave and play those unorthodox shots. That is the way going forward. And, in batting-friendly pitches like in Delhi and Mumbai, you do expect scores of two 399s and one 428 like we saw in this World Cup.”

‘People bat in ODIs the same way as in T20s’

Prof. Ratnakar Shetty, former Joint Secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and who was the Tournament Director of the 2011 World Cup, told this website that the spectators enjoyed high-scoring matches as well as the bowlers’ picking up wickets.

He said, “The general feeling is that if sides get out early, there is no credit given to the bowling attack. The blame goes on the pitch. If they score a lot of runs, the blame goes on the bowlers and that the attack is not up to the mark. Credit should go to batsmen and bowlers alike. When lots of runs are scored, that means somebody is staying at the crease for long and piling up a big total”.

“Even in this hot and humid weather, people do come to watch cricket. It (scoring runs) is the entertainment part of the match. As an organiser, I’d look at it that way. You cannot blame the standard of pitches either way,” he said.

Shetty said that the ICC had made an effort to give good pitches. “Andy Atkinson, the head curator of ICC, has been visiting all the venues and supervising the preparation of the pitches. ICC is involved in the making of the pitches. I can talk about the 2011 World Cup in India and no instructions were given to the staging centres about the pitches, even for the India matches. The pitches were supervised by the ICC team that went around the venues. The only thing was that spectators must get their money’s worth.”

Shetty agreed that with the T20 leagues aplenty around the world, only high-scoring matches are expected. “The way people bat in ODIs is the same as in T20s. High scores to some extent, people enjoy that. It is up to the opponents to take wickets,” the former General Manager, Administration and Game Development of BCCI, said.

‘Need something for all departments of the game’

Former BCCI curator from Ahmedabad and former Test player, Dhiraj Parsana, was unhappy to see lots of runs scored in this World Cup. He told this website: “There is nothing for the bowlers in this World Cup. As a curator now, I would prepare a pitch in which all the departments of the game come into play. This World Cup is purely batting-friendly. This is not right. I know it is pulling the crowd, but the spectators also understand the skills of the bowlers. Am not happy with the one-sided contests. I know a lot of money is involved and the crowd enjoys the fours and sixes, but overall, it is not good for cricket. You need something for all the departments of the game.”