Bikini Cricket : Not so skinny after-all

Bikini Cricket : Not so skinny after-all

Twenty20 cricket is coming of age, most certainly. After four years of realizing the phenomenon, a game that started off as twenty overs of slam-bam-whack-shack cricket is increasingly becoming a tactician’s trial and a captain’s test. It still reminds the boys or the men to cling on to the cliché of “stick to the basics”, but there is a lot beyond just that. Four years of constant experiments and investment has indeed paid off, so much so that teams are opting to be the meticulous over the callous.

People often say that it is a different ball game altogether, and twenty20 certainly is. The rules are pretty much post-modern that mostly seem daunting to the bowlers and perhaps tempting if you are batter. But what gets lost in all of this is the method. After generating enough curiousity and achieving its material objective, twenty20 is becoming a thinker’s game, more than any branch of cricketers. Yes, the rules are slightly different and rightly so, after all this is Bikini cricket. A front-foot no-ball costing two runs makes the bowler think more than twice before planting his giant strides forward as a free-hit beckons, where the batsman can be out only one way – run-out. The boundaries are brought in, so that the runs are in the game and angles start playing a big part in field-setting. Instead of the usual banter about this game being a batsman’s business more than a bowler’s toil, twenty20 takes care of every dimension.

The big twenty20 finals day in England was a much needed lesson to people playing this game or even the captains of the various teams heading to South Africa. There are finer trade secrets, which were revealed by some of the English players, most notably Jeremy Snape who won this championship twice with the Leicestershire Foxes in 2004 and 2006. One of the more fascinating findings was the role of a dugout in the innings. As you know, twenty20 has taken to this footballesque concept of a dugout or a bench, where a few of the team members are seated, along with the coach. As Geraint Jones walked out to bat for Kent against Sussex, Jeremy quite rightly said, “If someone is in the dugout, he is not just there to sit and watch the batsmen play. The dugout is all about warming up – getting used to the atmosphere, knowing where exactly the runs may come from and which bowlers to line-up. You start playing your innings from the dugout. Plan it there and execute it in the middle.” These were quite startling at first glance, but as one got more into the game they seem more practical than just mere commentary points.

The other important component of a successful twenty20 line-up is the spinner. A dying art, the purists might claim, is indeed coming to life in this version. While following twenty20 cricket, right through its inception to what it is today, the spinner has had plenty to say as far as the direction of the game is concerned. They could either become a target of slaughter for the batsmen or may dictate the pace in which the game goes. The theory doing the rounds at the moment in England is, “slower the bowler, slower the pace of the game”. In a twenty over match, it is so easy for the players to get carried away by the quick pace of the game, and this is where the spinner comes and slows things down to a large extent. Martyn Ball, who recently retired from First-Class cricket, was a master at this during his twenty20 days with Gloucestershire. Nayan Doshi, the son of former Indian spinner Dilip Doshi, played a very crucial part in Surrey’s making of a very good twenty20 side. The left-arm spinner is the leading twenty20 wicket taker in England with 53 scalps in, and would have been a sure fit in any international team designed for this version. India might have missed a trick or two at not even considering him, or even England for that matter. Graeme Swann of Nottinghamshire is another such example and even Murali Kartik, the forgotten spinner in the Indian books, bagged a consolation fiver for his county Middlesex recently. If one had a closer look at the recently concluded twenty20 Cup in England, the spinners bowled boldly at the death, showing enough courage to face the onslaught. So, a batsman’s game, says who ?

As a captain, if you thought your plate was full and heavy, think again. The clock ticking over at the bottom-right of the electronic scoreboard indicates the allotted time within which the twenty overs have to be bowled. If the last over is not bowled within one minute of the allotted time, the fielding side is automatically handed a penalty of six runs to be added to the batting team’s total. No monetary cuts, no over-reduction, just six runs that could turn pivotal to a team’s result on that day. Will this ensure a bit more responsibility on the part of the captain to get his overs bowled on time? No one knows. But with the six runs at the back of his mind, it could just trigger a willingness to get the job done and dusted before the clock decides to beep.

One of the basic queries regarding twenty20 cricket is why teams resort to playing specialists. The term “twenty20 specialist” is a slightly inexplicable term, because the general consensus is that if someone can play Test cricket or even one-day cricket, he should be able to adapt himself to twenty20 cricket, which is a justified argument. But, the twenty20 game has seen a lot of evolution, and the players who have been successful in this short version of the game have to put up with tags of specialists. Ian Harvey of Australia, twenty20’s first centurion is by-far the best in the category of specialists and an ideal twenty20 cricketer - someone who opens the batting, has a dash at everything, comes back bowls his four overs with a lot of variation in speeds, mix-ups, lengths. For instance, South Africa does not play Albie Morkel, Johannes Van Der Wath and Roger Telemachus in their preferred one-day team, but they sport the dark-green stripes for the Proteas in the twenty20 competition. England has named a squad for the twenty20 World Championship filled with players who do not play Test or ODIs for them. Luke Wright, Darren Maddy, Jeremy Snape and James Kirtley (who specializes in bowling at the death) are all considered “twenty20 specialists” and rightly so. Though only time will tell how this novel concept of specialists will turn out to be, and it’s first big laboratory is South Africa.

Twenty20 cricket might be entertainment alright, but along with keeping that E-factor in mind, teams must not compromise on the way the game is played – from the dugout, in the mind and on the strategy-board. All this theorizing may sound complex at first reading, but unless teams could learn from characters like Jeremy Snape, theory could just remain that. Yes, at first go, twenty overs sounds a decent run out for the teams, but as the twenty20 game has evolved and progressed, there is just a lot more method to it than the crowds and the cash.

(More to follow, India’s taste of Twenty20 cricket)