Although cricket as a sport has been played in some form in England for more than a thousand years, and as an international event since Australia and England first met in Melbourne in 1877, matches have often been determined by a fair degree of luck as well.
That is because winning the toss can have a disproportionate say in who eventually goes on to win the match. Most sides that win the toss choose to bat first. That is because pitches, no matter how well prepared, tend to deteriorate over the course of a four-day o fifth-day match.
By the final day the pitch will become very difficult to bat on, and, if the opposing team has good spin bowlers, they can end up having a field day.
On the other hand, in one day cricket, it may be an advantage to field first. For example, during the recent T20 World Cup staged in the Middle East, those who had to contend with the very heavy dew that fell at dusk were clearly at a disadvantage.
Some may even argue that can make cricket into something of a game of chance that can be played online. Check out the newest Irish online casinos listed here for examples of some of the leading operators and their current promotions and bonus offers.
In order to address this dilemma, a leading academic. Harris Aziz has come up with a radical new proposal.
Currently, winning the toss is a two-step process. The umpire tosses the coin, and the winning captain then decides whether to bat or field first. He is suggesting adding an extra step in the chain.
Aziz advocates that, when the coin has been tossed, the losing captain chooses a run handicap which should be assigned to the winning side in order to level up the two teams.
The cleverness of the scheme is that the unlucky captain will not want to either over or underestimate the runs needed to even up the sides, as it will then be down to the winning captain to decide if they bat or field first.
Whilst some may argue that this makes cricket complicated for both the players and the spectators, it should be noted that they already sue the Duckworth-Lewis model in one day cricket in the event of weather affecting a run case, with the required total adjusted according to how many overs of pl, ay have been lost.
This is not the first time either that attempts have been made to compensate for losing the toss. Between 2016 and 2019 the English County Championship gave visiting teams the opportunity to bowl first. stopping home teams preparing seam pitches that favored their bowlers on the first day of a match.
It was then dropped because it was decided that it had not worked.
Whether cricket is prepared to embrace Dr Azaz’s proposal remains to be seen. However, if it could be trialled and found to work, then potentially it could make matches an even fairer contest, which would be an attractive proposition for both paying spectators, and those watching on television.
