Why World Cup down under is the mother of all entertainment cricket

The final of the T20 World Cup 2022 will be held on November 13 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne, Australia

Ah, to be back in Australia for a World Cup!

There’s something about the country that instantly evokes memories of cricket’s premium event. Australia, the team, of course, is synonymous with World Cups, albeit in the ODI format. Anyone who lived through the '90s and the noughties would agree. Australia have won five of the 12 one-day World Cups, including three on the bounce from 1999 to 2007. Australia’s cricketing weapons of mass destruction, in fact, didn’t lose even a single World Cup game in 2003 and 2007; a run that easily sandwiched two complete terms of George W Bush’s presidency. Chew on that fact for a moment.

Australia also happens to be the defending T20 world champions, and they are the team to beat at the 2022 Twenty20 World Cup. However, this piece is not about the might of the Aussie cricket team.

It’s surprising that the T20 World Cup has taken this long to make its way down under. After all, this is the format of the game packaged unabashedly as entertainment, and Australia is the veritable home of cricket as packaged entertainment. All the innovations that have taken the limited-overs cricket experience forward — coloured clothing, white balls, floodlights, high-quality broadcast panels and modern graphics — were pioneered in Australia first. For instance, remember "Daddles" the animated duck that would walk across the screen when a batter got out for zero? Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, in a sense, ushered in every novelty that’s progressed limited-overs cricket to where it is today. You could say T20 cricket itself came about as the next state of this evolution.

Australia, in partnership with New Zealand, has hosted two ODI World Cups — in 1992 and 2015. In a sense, these two editions bookended the evolution of power-hitting that has become central to short-form cricket. In '92, the term "pinch-hitting" started doing the rounds, as batters woke up to the idea of taking early risks to capitalise on field restrictions. Through that World Cup, New Zealand’s captain, the tactical genius Martin Crowe, promoted the left-handed batter Mark Greatbatch with the sole intention of clearing the infield. The spark of pinch-hitting was lit in the fifth over of the 92 semi-final, when Greatbatch square-cut the bowler of the tournament Wasim Akram for a jaw-dropping six. The moment had arrived for the aggressive ODI opener. In the years that followed, Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya, Saeed Anwar, Adam Gilchrist and an array of other attractive stroke-players would take ODI batsmanship to the next level.

That wasn’t Crowe’s only innovation though — he also got New Zealand to open their bowling with an off-spinner instead of a fast bowler. Dipak Patel’s slow, non-turning off-breaks spannered the efforts of batters to force the ball off the square in the early overs. It’s a tactic that we see being used quite frequently now in T20 cricket. When West Indies won the 2016 World T20, they had leg-spinner Samuel Badree opening their attack regularly, and with great success.

Today’s prototype spinner is capable of bowling at any point of time in a T20 innings, and in fact, their introduction is mostly down to match-ups. Ever wonder why Kohli keeps getting out to leg-spinners and left-arm spinners? It’s because they are brought on specifically when he’s new to the crease, and his vulnerability to their line of attack is well-known.

The abiding memory of the 1992 World Cup surely has to be the shambolic rain rule that scuppered South Africa in the semi-final. South Africa needed 22 off 13 to beat England when the heavens opened, and after the rain interruption, their revised target was a vexing 21 off 1 ball. To add to the tragicomedy of the situation, they were first incorrectly informed that they needed 22 off 1 ball. Twelve balls gone to the rain, and no revision in the runs required. It would be unfair to say South Africa choked — they drowned. This curiously silly rain-rule would go on to be replaced by the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method, which though equally opaque, is broadly considered to be a more just and logical system.

After 1992, the World Cup returned to Australia in 2015. The spark that Crowe and Greatbatch lit all those years before was a raging fire by now. Brendon McCullum, captain of New Zealand, charged out to try and smash every ball he faced to the boundary. He succeeded often, as his side bulldozed their way into the final, but he failed spectacularly against Mitchell Starc on the big day. The final was an unmemorable game, made worse by Australia captain Michael Clarke hijacking the big occasion to make it all about himself and his retirement.

All the innovations that have taken the limited overs cricket experience forward — coloured clothing, white balls, floodlights, high quality broadcast panels, modern graphics — were pioneered in
Australia first.

Earlier in the tournament, power-hitting reached its zenith when South Africa squared off against West Indies. In that match, AB de Villiers walked out at No. 5 in the 30th over. In the next 20 overs, he had enough time to smash 162 off a scarcely-believable 66 balls, with 17 fours and 8 sixes. The carnage was the inevitable result of unchecked changes to laws and playing conditions, making limited-overs cricket overwhelmingly a batter’s game. By now, different balls were used in ODIs from both ends, fields had become smaller, and there were too many Powerplays, or phases with field restrictions that favoured batters. Earlier that year, de Villiers had cracked the fastest ever ODI 50 and 100 against the same hapless West Indies. Rohit Sharma scored multiple 200s in this phase, and during this World Cup Martin Guptill and Chris Gayle also indulged themselves to ODI 200s — a feat that seemed impossible barely five years earlier.

Soon after the World Cup, powerplay rules were finally put in check. The batting powerplay — a five-over block of mayhem that the batting side could activate at any stage in the innings — was done away with. Now, a fifth fielder is allowed outside the 30-yard circle in the last 10 overs of ODIs. The same rules apply to the latter 14 overs of a T20 innings. Scoring rates have thankfully come down since this change was made, bringing back a semblance of balance between bat and ball.

This does not mean the era of the pinch-hitter, or his more muscled successor — the power-hitter — is over. If anything, T20 cricket now features entire line-ups of hitters and the role of the more traditional, conservative batter, is being rightfully questioned. A few months back, there were very fair questions being asked about Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul’s places in the Indian T20 side, since they all conform more to the template of a traditional batter. The trio has since then managed to string a series of good scores to keep the doubters at bay, but come World Cup time, they will feel the scrutiny again.

The 1992 edition is fondly remembered for Pakistan’s "cornered tigers" pulling off a heist to win the tournament against all odds. Cut to 2022, and it’s fair to say that the current Indian team, with all sorts of form and fitness issues, are far from the favourites. Can they pull off a Pakistan '92? Or will Australia add one more World Cup to their cupboard of silverware? Or will the mighty West Indies rise again?

It’s a fool’s errand to predict winners in the T20 format, but we can predict one thing with a lot of certainty: Australia will once again host a darned good event, an entertaining tournament that will once again help the game evolve further.