Some suggested changes for IPL

I had been contemplating putting down my thoughts on how IPL should change, how it should not be just another T20 tournament, how it should develop its own USP. And that is when I came across the article Power-hitting, the stand-out aspect of T20 cricket, by S. Dinakar in The Hindu of May 2, 2014. The article starts out “The sixes have been bludgeoned rather than timed in the on-going Indian Premier League”.

I noticed the difference immediately – in the title it is T20 but in the first sentence it is IPL. Save Erapalli Prasanna, a favorite cricketer of mine when I was growing up, none of the people quoted in this piece made the distinction between T20 and IPL. Then, I thought I should join Prasanna and cement this distinction, going far beyond what I suspect my hero would have liked to. Sorry Prasanna!

To start mild, I would say that as IPL has to discard this toss ritual. The designated home team must bat first, no matter the conditions. As each team plays every other team on a home-and-away basis through the season, each team will be forced to exhibit its wherewithal in setting a target as well as in chasing one. With some tweaks this can be taken into the play-off games also.

The field restrictions must go. This would bring in dynamism to the match. It is up to the captain to marshal his strengths strategically and tactically too. Where he placed his fielders for a particular bowler at a particular stage in the contest must be his prerogative and his alone.

The faster IPL sheds power plays, the better it would be. These look such a patchwork of rules and regulations. The bowling captain should give the nod to the fact that any ball bowled is a potential wicket or the clichéd “maximum”. He has to do a risk assessment – after all he has a battery of laptops working for him. On the other hand, I do not see any harm in keeping the no ball, short pitched ball and wide rules.

In American baseball, one of the funniest and most entertaining things to watch is the signal from the dugouts to the players in the middle. I miss these in IPL. IPL should bring in these, one signal, as decided by the captain taking feedback from the coaches, to all in the field. There should be detailed playbook with each combination of bowlers, batsmen and field positions given a specific code.  It will be a choreographed dance’ like touching the nose, pulling the right ear, slapping oneself on the right cheek etc. and we could be spared the pom-pom shaking of the cheer leaders!

The umpire’s status must be lowered. As it is, even for the most obvious decisions, the third umpire is consulted. It is the decision board that conveys the decision. The umpire is becoming increasingly redundant. Then, I do not see the need for the exalted position given to umpires. They must become more like the ball boys and girls in tennis!

And, here comes the big one. Each team must comprise two sub-teams, one batting and the other fielding. The batting sub-team must have no more than six players. The bowling team may have either eight or nine players; that is, six or seven players to cover the field. No restrictions on how many players can be shared between the two sides (the maximum, of course, is six!)

I will hint at the logic behind these suggestions. With only six wickets to lose, and even with only six or seven fielders roaming the field, the batting side will be wary of “bludgeoning”. The effect of “field restrictions” is brought out through another mechanism. The batsmen can go in for his shots but has to bear the risk of things not going well. There has to be heightened level of confidence behind a shot as the number of wickets to be sacrificed is fewer. The batting side will not carry the deadwood of bowlers trying to swat any and every ball out of the park. There will be some cricket left in IPL, unlike today.

If all these changes are brought in IPL would cease to be T20. A new name can be thought for this format of the game. Prasanna’s distinction will be valid and I will be satisfied. Why worry about the others?

Raghuram Ekambaram

On T20 & IPL

IPL is a nice diversion for me in the evening, a few minutes of unwinding after a few hours of not-too-taxing work at the office. No wonder, then, as my eyes take in the feast of cheer leaders waving pom poms , my mind works overtime on the format of T20 and conduct of IPL.

The following are some of my brief observations:

1.    In T20, there is no need to carry the full contingent of 11 players in each inning. The team should be split into, say, 7 players, all batsmen, on the batting side (six wickets make up an inning) and 8 (bowlers and fielders), for the fielding side. Each sub-team (as in American Football) can sport specialists, which may also include all-rounders. In the sub-bullets below, I point out the rationale for such a split.

a.    There will be no also-rans hitting boundaries towards the end of an inning, as each batsman is a genuine batsman and no bowler will be called into bat.

b.    Runs will be scored by batsman playing cricketing shots (and slogging if needed) and not by bowlers hitting “Hail Mary!” shots (in American football, desperate heaves by the QB are called “Hail Mary!” passes!).

c.    The value of defending one’s wicket will go up, each wicket to be defended for 20 balls on average instead of for 12.

d.    No need to have special provisions like Power Play overs or field restrictions. Risk assessment and risk taking will be negotiated solely by the batting team, indeed by the batsman facing the bowler – some demand on intelligence.

e.    There will be no less opportunities for scoring as there will be three less fielders.

f.     More players on the team will truly earn their salary, as the number of players on the field is likely to be more than 11.

2.    In IPL, the coin toss should be done away with. The home team will choose either to bat or field first. No matter how much the experts rate and evaluate the pitch, I do not believe they have actually predicted what the batsmen face.

3.    Stipulate against meaningless statistics. In a match the day after the Gayle blitz, a projected score of 245 was flashed on the TV screen with the score reading something like 30+ in about 15 or so balls. To the eternal shame of MS Excel adherents, the final tally in the innings was between 150 and 160. Now, what kind of a projection was that? Indeed, even in the later parts of an innings, the screen shows “XXX at x runs per over”, “YYY at y runs per over” etc. The information content is zero. If such projections are indeed deemed necessary, IPL should get some cricketing professionals / statisticians to assess the situation and throw up some meaningful, realizable number, not a tasteless smorgasbord.

4.    Delete the award ceremony after each match. Photo-ops for corporates and politicians – gag me with a fork!

5.    Let IPL show some form of social responsibility and institute one-year scholarship for students in schools (excluding the fancy ones) or spruce up the labs / library etc. in the name of the MVP of each match in the host city. After all, it is the city that supports the franchise, at the gates and beyond TV revenue. Abolish all the other awards.

6.    Let the players know that they are playing for the owners of the team. If they get booed, it comes with the territory. No national sentiment can be carried on to the IPL – this comment is directed at Virat Kohli.  

7.    Get the cheer leaders out. Even in the first edition, the novelty factor did not score much and now it is decidedly dragging. Oh, those ethnic dresses on cheer leaders – so disgusting.

Raghuram Ekambaram