ICC Cricket Quarterly, July 2010

8/7/2019 ICC Cricket Quarterly, July 2010

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4CRICKET QUARTERLY

What changes should the ICC lead intackling these?

ICC takes these issues seriously and wecontinuously work with all Members topromote such values.

What do you see as the operationalstrengths of the ICC?

Governance is something we all keepworking on. Our job is to continue to be moretransparent and ensure all Members do thesame. There may be some shortcomings butthe ICC is constantly helping every one of itsMembers to overcome any such shortcomings.

What do you think the role of the ICCExecutive should be?

The role of the Executive should be to helpand advice its Members to better govern theirown cricketing boards.

What are the operational strengths andweaknesses of the ICC?

The strengths of ICC are that all Membersdiscuss all issues collectively and all Membersadhere to all decisions taken by the ExecutiveBoard. We have a strong secretariat and goodpeople who have dedicated themselves to thedevelopment of the game. We work as a team

and Members respect diverse views and havecommitment to the promotion of cricket.

What investment in socialresponsibility programmes isappropriate for cricket?

Through cricket, one can learn the greatlife values of integrity and respect; itaffords opportunities for development ofcommunication, leadership and team skills; itembraces individual excellence and flair, whilealso valuing cooperation and communication

within a team environment; and throughits egalitarianism, it enables people of allbackgrounds to have equal access andopportunity to participate. It also requiresdedication to meeting performance standardsof the skills themselves. ICC takes this roleseriously and has various programmes.

What are the major changes youenvisage in world cricket over the next

5 years and what are the challenges inimplementing these?

The next five years are important for all ofus as we see a very bright future for cricket.Whilst there is great optimism, at the sametime there are challenges. These include:

Expansion into new markets There isextreme competition from other sports.We need to ensure we are able to capturethe imagination of the fans and penetratethe market.

Build new infrastructure around the world Here again we need to protect the revenuegenerated by the game to be ploughed backinto infrastructural improvements

Get more and more countries to playcompetitive Test cricket Players need toembrace Tests, but Twenty20 seems to givethem more money so we need to find abalance for all formats.

Popularity Many smaller countries arelosing out to football and rugby in theirmarkets and thus losing revenues. We needto try and help them win back audiencesand so they can continue to build the sportand grassroots programmes and build newinfrastructure.

Anti-corruption We need to take all possiblesteps in this important area so that the gameis not brought into any disrepute anywherein the world.

Sharad Pawar believes that socialresponsibility is an important part ofinternational cricket.

The new ICC President believestournaments like the ICC World

Twenty20 2010 have helped raisethe profile of the sport amongst

young people.


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IDENTIFYINGTHE TOP TWENTY20TALENT

CRICKET QUARTERLY 5

With the Test and ODI Reliance Mobile ICCPlayer Rankings well established, Twenty20rankings are the natural next development.But its not simply a case of taking one of theexisting ranking systems, plugging in the newmatches and seeing who comes out top. Ithas become increasingly apparent that we are

witnessing new skills and new strategies, andthat a good ODI player let alone a good Testplayer might not cut the mustard when itcomes to T20. In other words, we are talkingabout a new type of cricket, where differentstatistics come into play.

The most obvious difference between T20and other forms of the game is in the scoringrate. Where five runs per over has been parfor ODIs, in Twenty20 it is not uncommon forthat rate to be nearly doubled. Traditionally,scoring 50 runs off 60 balls has always beenan outstanding achievement, whatever the

cricket. But in a T20 match, 50 off 60 balls isfar less noteworthy. In fact in many matchesthis innings would be a liability, because if allthe batsmen were to score at this rate, theinnings total would be just 100, an inadequatescore in international Twenty20.

Never in cricket hasthe rate of scoring beenso important, and in the T20ranking system, scoring runs fastis the single most significantthing a batsman can do.Twenty runs off six balls will,in many circumstances, beworth more to his side than40 runs off 30.

Theres a similar story inbowling, where wicket-takinghas traditionally been the markof achievement for bowlers.But in Twenty20, a team will notoften manage to take all ten of theopponents wickets, which meanswicket-taking is far less significant. Thedominant factor in bowling is now economy,and a miserly spinner who takes 0 for 15 offfour overs is generally doing more for his teamscause than a strike bowler taking 3 for 40.

In the new ICC T20 Rankings, all these factorsare being incorporated into a beta system thatis being tracked against current international

match results and will be released whensufficient data has been verified.

Who IS top? For that, you have to wait a littlebit longer, because the international game isso young that there are still not many playerswho have played enough matches to have ameaningful ranking.

As with the other player rankings, new playersstart at zero, and wont get a full ranking untiltheyve played a decent number of games around 15. Until hes fully qualified, a playersranking can be very volatile, leaping up ordown 20 places or more after each game.

So while the ICC World Twenty20 will continueto determine who the best T20 team is in theworld, fans will have to wait a little longer tofind out who the leading player is according tothe official rankings.

Whos the worlds best Twenty20 player?A few years ago this question wouldprobably have been of only marginalinterest to cricket followers, but the rapidgrowth of this new form of thegame has brought Twenty20players to centre stage.

Yuvraj Singh would be expected to featurehighly in the T20 rankings.

Accurate bowlers, likeDaniel Vettori, will berewarded in the new system.


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THE NUMBERS GAME

8CRICKET QUARTERLY

and reflects the views of the games mostimportant constituencies from players to

coaches to administrators to umpires tomatch referees to the media, statisticians,broadcasters and lawmakers.

In May, the Committee, which was attendedby the likes of India coach Gary Kirsten,considered information on a wide range oftopics, which had been sourced by CricketArchive and were presented by leadingstatistician David Kendix, who also sits on theCommittee, to provide a fascinating insightinto the state of the modern game.

Are teams and players playing more

international cricket than ever before?Using figures from the past three years forteams and the last seven years for players,to average out discrepancies in countriesschedules, the facts make interesting

reading, although they obviously donttake into account the rise of domestic

Twenty20 competitions. The nine Test country average is 78 playing

days per annum, stable for some time(always in range 76-80 days per annum)

India, Australia and England playconsistently more than the average numberof days; now in the mid-90s

NZ, SL, SA and WI play close to the averagenumber of days per annum, althoughBangladesh (64) and Pakistan (56) are someway below average

The amount of cricket played by an averageof the games 20 most active players hasrecently fallen by around 10% (from 72to 65 days p.a.), but as team volumes areunchanged, this suggests they play a slightlysmaller proportion of their teams days

The ICC CricketCommittee met in

May at Lords CricketGround to consider some

statistical trends in theinternational game.

Cricket is a game famous for having

followers with a love of statistics but how

often do you hear players, spectators, themedia and even administrators refer to

things such as volume of cricket, over-rates,

run rates and the attractiveness of ODI

cricket, without necessarily using evidenceto back up their arguments?

Now the information is available to help the

games policy makers as the ICC commissions

research, on an annual basis, into some of

the key trends of the game (from 1 April 2009

31 March 2010) to inform the ICC Cricket

Committee and other committees and the

results are extremely positive.That ICC Cricket Committee, chaired byformer West Indies captain Clive Lloyd,

meets on an annual basis to discuss some

of the most important cricket policy topics

The ICC Cricket Committee meets on an annual basis to discuss some of the major policy issues effecting the world game.


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Has Twenty20 cricket had an impact

on the speed in which runs are

scored in other forms of the game?

Although there are many factors to considerwhen answering this question, the run-ratesfor both Test and ODI cricket have increasedin the last year.

Test run rate was 3.30 runs per overs

(average for the 2000s was 3.22, 1990swas 2.87)

ODI run rate reached highest ever level of5.19 (260 per 50 overs). Was 5.04 last yearand averaged 4.97 over previous five years

T20I run rates were 7.55 (151 per 20 overs), inline with average of previous two years

What impact have Power Plays had

on the attractiveness of ODI cricket?

When the Power Play was first introducedto international cricket, back in 2005, manybelieved that it was needed to increase the

attractiveness of 50-over cricket. The evidencesuggests, certainly from a batting perspective,that they have added both variety andexcitement to the game for spectators butthere is quite a lot of predictability in whensides implement them.

Bowling power plays are takenimmediately 91% of the time, and afterover 16 only 3% of the time.

Batting power plays are being taken later,54% start in overs 43-46, up from 42%previously, with an average of 35 runs being

scored for the loss of 1.6 wickets. Six hitting frequency does not vary

between power play and non-power playovers, but fours become nearly twice ascommon (1 in 10 balls versus 1 in 19 balls).

Indias Virender Sehwag has played a role inincreasing scoring rates in all forms of the game.

Have over-rates improved

in international cricket?

One of the biggest criticisms of internationalcricket is the pace at which teams bowl theirovers. While the ICC continues to pursueinitiatives aimed at speeding up the pace ofplay, the changes made in recent years haveled to improvements.

There have been improvements in over-rates for two successive years in all threeforms of the game, e.g.

Tests 13.78, then 13.91, now 14.05

ODIs 13.57, then 13.93, now 14.38

These improvements are equivalent to1.5 overs per six hour day in Tests and 12minutes per 50 over innings in ODIs.

Interestingly, ODI over-rates in India and SriLanka are by far the slowest and in Englandthey are the fastest, but Tests in India andSri Lanka have higher over rates than Testsin England.

This perhaps suggests that bowlingcomposition is the major over-rate driverfor Tests, but climate is for ODIs.

The figures are before allowances forwickets, drinks and interruptions for overrate breach purposes.

Should Test matches be reduced to

four-day rather than five-day games?

Some pundits have argued that it would bebetter for Test Matches to last for four days,rather than five, due to the number of gamesfinishing early, but the evidence from thepast year doesnt back this up.

The proportion of draws fell to 22.5% in

2009; the long term trend is stable in range20%-30%

Of the Tests with a positive result, theaverage duration was 4.45 days, thehighest for 15 years

Attacking batters like Kevin Pietersen havetaken advantage of the Power Play overs.


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While most of the games stakeholderswere making their way home from the

thrilling ICC World Twenty20 2010 in theCaribbean, the games leading umpires andreferees were gathering in Barbados in Mayto discuss the key issues relating to theofficiating of the sport.

The two-day workshop brought together thefocused group of the Emirates Elite matchreferees and umpires, and Regional UmpirePerformance Managers.

Among the key topics discussed was theDecision Review System (DRS), with PaulHawkins, who was responsible for the

development of the Hawk-eyes technology,giving a detailed presentation on Hawk-eyesmethodology and engaging in discussions onthe systems effectiveness and accuracy.

The seminar, led by ICC Umpire and RefereesManager, Vince Van Der Bijl, also detailedan additional assessment process for theElite and international umpires. Previouslythe umpires were assessed measuring theumpires overall match grade, a numericalaverage of the referees grading of eachumpire; their overall average, made up ofsixteen performance indicators under the

four headings of critical decisions, generaldecisions, match management and selfmanagement and team work, as well astheir actual correct decision percentages ininternational matches.

This year a further assessment tool will beused to measure the key attributes whichare directly aligned to the key Elite umpirecriteria. These attributes are attitude andteam work, preparation and knowledge,match management, correct decisionmaking, technique and personal assessmentand development.

There is a need to consider a broader rangeof specific factors other than correct decision-making based on appeals, a traditionalevaluation method, which reflect thechanging face and demands of Elite umpiring.

In a Twenty20 match, for example, decisionson wides, no balls, the pace of the game and

over rates are key to excellent officiating (withan average of only 5 appeals only in a T20match), while in a Test Match (with an averageof 55 decisions per Test) challenges such asdealing with bat-pad catches and crucial lbwdecisions during a sustained period of pressurein the match creates different requirements. Itshould be noted that the DRS in Tests and thefast pace of Twenty20 matches demand realteam work and collective leadership withinthe match officials team The Playing ControlTeam (PCT), said Van Der Bijl.

The seminar also focused

on the roles and duties ofthe five Regional UmpirePerformance Managers(RUPMs), who performancemanage, coach and assistthe elite and internationalumpires as they strive for on-fieldexcellence. Their aim is the continuousimprovement and development of the eliteand international umpires in their specificregions and to provide individual supportto visiting umpires who officiate in theirregions. The RUPMs are an integral part ofthe PCT and play an important role in thesupport of the elite umpires and workingwith the Home Boards in developing theaspiring next group of elite umpires.

In addition the seminar was used as anopportunity to bring the umpires up to speedon other key issues affecting the game. Thisincluded discussing policy issues relating toplaying conditions and regulations, and theseconcepts were taken forward to the ICCCricket Committee (which met the followingweek) by the match officials representatives,Ranjan Madugalle and Simon Taufel. IainHiggins, ICC lawyer, focused on the ICC Code

of Conduct and Sean Carroll, the newlyappointed ICC Security manager shared theprogress being made by the Anti-Corruptionand Security Unit to further enhance thesecurity of match officials..

The games leading

match officials discusskey policy issues inseminar in Caribbean.

PreparingTHE DECISION MAKERS

Umpire Billy Bowden reversesan LBW decision againstJacques Kallis of South Africa.

Australian umpire SimonTaufel (L) and England colleagueUmpire Ian Gould.

Documents

ICC Cricket Quarterly, July 2010