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ShareMumbai: The switch hit, the slinging yorker, the fly slip --innovations in batting, bowling and fielding are what we've come to expect in the adrenaline rush that is T20 cricket. Often overlooked in all this is the one thing that distinguishes the sport above all else, and keeps connoisseurs hooked -- the thinking.
Pundits still present T20 as a tamasha, betraying their anxiety to cling to the familiar and reluctance to give this new form of cricket the legitimacy of Tests and one-dayers. They call it unpredictable, implying that a T20 win is nothing more than a fluke, conveniently forgetting how Bangladesh beat India and Ireland beat Pakistan in the last one-day World Cup.
If you think about how Shane Warne took a team with the fewest proven international players to victory in the first IPL, and almost took an even weaker team into the semi-final this time, or how a change of captaincy transformed the fortunes of Hyderabad and Bangalore, clearly there's more to T20 than 'slam, bam, thank you'.
Contrary to the impression that instant cricket has to be all brawn and no brain, strategy is in fact where T20 can be the most demanding -- and alluring. You have to think on your feet, obviously, because every ball counts for more than in any other version of the game -- after all, there are only 120 of them in an innings. More than that, however, you have to think outside the box, setting aside three decades of conditioning by one-day cricket.
What T20 offers is the opportunity for a paradigm shift -- just as one-day cricket did in the seventies. But it is this aspect of T20 that has developed the least in the two years since the first World Cup in South Africa. That's not to say there haven't been innovations in batting lineups, team selection and field placement. The point is there has been no fundamental change in approach to the game.
Mahi way was wrong
Most captains and coaches still view a T20 innings as a shortened version of its one-day counterpart. So there's an aggressive beginning, where the batsmen try to take advantage of the field restrictions, a steady middle, where the aim is to keep wickets in hand, and the final onslaught. But is this the only way or even the best way to plan the innings? Time and again during the just-concluded IPL in South Africa it proved to be the wrong way.
The semi-final that Dhoni lost is just one example. Mathew Hayden and Parthiv Patel scored at over nine an over in the first seven overs. In spite of that rollicking start, Dhoni and Raina played out the middle overs cautiously. But when neither of them could capitalise on the time they took to get set, the batsmen to follow -- Jacob Oram, Albie Morkel, S Badrinath -- were left floundering with the task of having to lift the run rate in the last four overs without the benefit of getting their eye in.
So why did Dhoni, one of the biggest hitters in the game, play a sedate, risk-free knock of 28 in 29 balls?
This was a pattern in many of the 59 matches of the IPL -- of teams setting modest targets or failing to chase scores of 140 odd despite having plenty of wickets in hand for the final four or five overs. The reason is that scoring 50 or 60 runs in the last five overs will only come off once in a while, because all it takes for that to come unstuck is one or two good overs and the fall of one or two key wickets. It's probably more difficult to score at over 10 an over in the final phase, when the best bowlers are on, than to try to maintain a sustained aggression throughout the 20 overs.
The idea of playing safe in the middle overs to keep wickets in hand for the slog at the end has been transmuted from one-day cricket. But T20 need not be a compressed form of a 50-over game. It may make more sense to keep going at 8 plus an over until four or five of the main batsmen and one or two pinch-hitters have fallen, and then take stock. For this to work, the sheet-anchors should only come at the end, if required, and not in the middle. Then the batting resources will be fully utilised.
Such an approach would call for a new think about the batting line-up -- a top order adept at chipping the ball over the infield, a middle order with the best strokemakers, and a rear guard with steady bats who can play out the full quota of overs if all the hitters fail. This reduces the chance of a few good sloggers warming the bench while the team ends up with a below par score. It's after all a format where you can actually afford to lose a wicket every three overs. Instead of seeing T20 as two-fifths of a 50-over match, think of it as a 50-over game minus the boring middle overs where you play for singles and two's.
Waiting for another Greatbatch idea
It took a decade and a half of one-day cricket before New Zealand's Martin Crowe hit upon the idea of sending Mark Greatbatch out to open the innings in the 1992 World Cup. Greatbatch was neither an outstanding opener nor a pinch-hitter -- he was an expert at lofting the ball over the infield to exploit the field restrictions.
Sri Lanka took the Greatbatch gambit one step further in the 1996 World Cup, with Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharana firing over the infield from both ends, and one-day scores of 250, once considered good, became passe.
Now let's see how long it takes T20 to have its metamorphosis. The first captain to figure it out will get a headstart in the race to the World Cup.
