Cricket model study: Twenty-Twenty?
Article by Raghuram Ekambaram

Engineers are a fussy lot. They do all kinds of high flying mathematics to analyze a problem but before signing off, demand a model study. Be it the hydraulic model, crash worthiness, or wind tunnel test, or experimental stress analysis, they demand a “feel” for the performance of their design, albeit many times on a scaled down model. And, any third year student of engineering will tell you that dimensional analysis is the basis of such experimental study/verification. Here, dimension has a different meaning altogether, from what is understood in common parlance.

It is not the length, breadth, depth etc. It is the nature of the dimension. Is it a distance, force, or time measure? Do they carry their influence through the model with fidelity? The model has to satisfy such a stringent analysis. I found it difficult to understand. I remember we used to be told that a hydraulic model test of a ship is being conducted in the lab and we could go and see and try to learn things. I believe it is the same kind of motivation the spectators have for watching twenty-twenty. They want to learn about the real thing, but, apparently cricket fans have no problem.

Twenty-twenty cricket is a model test of the real thing, the 50 overs version (apologies to the traditionalists, if there are any left, other than yours truly). Its length dimensions have not been reduced – the same fields, the same 22 yards between stumps of the same height in the full scale, the same size ball, and the players have not been midgeted. Fealty to the original is obvious; after all it is one bowler against one batsman at one time or two batsmen running between the two creases. The force dimension is the same: the ball is hurled within the same speed range and bat swung similarly. Regarding fielding restrictions, I will come to it shortly. The minimum number of required bowlers on the team is retained; it was five in the original and the same in the model study. But, the time dimension, the number of overs being the proxy, has been reduced severely.

But the cricket powers-that-be, like ICC, BCCI, have not understood model study very well. I have half a mind to give them a ‘D’ in the course. What about the team? Why has it not been reduced? In fifty overs, the probability of a team of eleven being sent home is high; this we have seen for the past 30 years or so. In twenty overs, no matter to how many kamikazes one team might be the haven of, getting ten wickets is definitely less probable. The nature of the game has changed. A failure in dimensional analysis.

How to set things right? We cannot do a straight forward pro rata reduction. You would end up with 4.4 players per team. I am not being facetious, only highly technical as model study requires me to be. Why cannot we have seven players per fielding team? Leaving out the wicket keeper we may have as many as six bowlers and that should be sufficient to cover twenty overs. We could allow one bowler, at the captain’s discretion, to bowl as many as six overs, but the others will be limited to the normal four. Of course the team can accommodate one “specialist” fielder and satisfy all the per-bowler over limits. With seven fielders, there will be no need to have fielding restrictions. The options for the batsman to play around and over field placements are many. There is nothing sacred about seven players. If we wanted more fielders, make it eight per fielding team. The probability of shooting down six goes high and that is a good enough motivation for the bowlers, I suppose.

You must have noticed that I said “fielding team”. What I have in mind is to field a distinct seven player “batting” team. Here I would loath to increase it to eight. Let the symmetry be broken. The two sub-teams of one team can be, but need not be, exclusive of each other; the intersection may not be a null set. They, in fact, can be identical, if the team is populated by all-rounders of the caliber of Sir Garfield Sobers! But, I hear you saying, “It grates to have two sub-teams and such.” You can get used to it and it is not so alien after all.

American football has, as far as I remember, at least four sub-teams – offense, defense, kicking and punting, and return. You would see a bunch come out and another bunch go in when the ball changes hands. If American football can have that configuration why cannot twenty-twenty?

What do we gain? For one thing, any team will field its very best for the given situation, bowling/fielding or batting. No compromises. Bowlers will be forced to carry more of the fielding burden, with no place to hide. It will be natural to have a bowler as the captain, or at best the wicket keeper. Batsman’s de facto monopoly will be broken. Every batsman, down to number seven is a potential match winner, while chasing. And, most importantly, with a sixteen player contingent, we are assured of some one to carry “drinks”! Alas, there is no “drinks” break in twenty-twenty!

We may look at the issue in more concrete terms: in a test match, taking a crude average, a wicket has to be protected for 90x5/40= 11.25 overs. In ODIs it is one per 5 overs. That is, in a sense, the aggression measure went up by a factor of more than 2, 2.25 to be exact. In twebty-twenty, the numbers are one wicket per two overs and the aggression measure between ODIs and T-20s increased by 2.5 times. If we follow what is suggested here, it will be a wicket per 3.33 overs (3 overs and 2 balls) and 5/3.33 gives a more meaningful 1.5, coming down from the 2.25 between tests and ODIs. The aggression curve has a natural flattening out instead of an exponential increase as the overs are curtailed. Both the batsmen and bowlers will enjoy. A better balance between the need to protect one’s wicket and be aggressive will be achieved.

One last thought. I think cricket wanted to get into the Olympics and no one is going to allow a 7 ½ hour long game. Baseball at 3+ hours is taxing enough. This is what the cricket people are trying. This is what the model testing is all about.

P.S My contact with cricket has been exclusively through tennis balls. So, you know how much NaCl you need to add to the above.

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