Yesterday I was trying to understand the shift in ODI cricket compared to late 90s and early 2000s- scores of 350+ becoming almost regular, teams batting deeper and deeper , bowling all-rounders being preferred to full-time bowlers etc.
Why no team from the old era tried this approach – stack the team with allrounders – even half-good batters and keep batting aggressively. Not necessary that it would work always, but why no one tried that regularly. And how are today’s teams able to pull it off match after match ?
A major reason has been the use of two balls in ODIs and the fielding restrictions. But one can’t ignore the effect of pitches. Pitches have always been becoming better for batting even since the 90s. What has changed now to allow this new approach to work ?
I got the answer in India vs Sri Lanka match. The pitch was a little tricky, slow, turning and some balls stopping on the batsmen. In spite of a good start of 80/0 in 11 overs, Indian batsmen struggled a lot later . Free flowing hitters like Hardik Pandya and Ishan Kishan were struggling to maintain even a strike rate of 50.
I suddenly remembered that in the 90s such pitches were very common. Not every other match but may be 1 in 5. If this were a 90s/2000s ODI team, they would have realized that the ball is turning and you can’t hit too many boundaries, go back to accumulation mode between overs 15 and 40. They would have probably scored 100 runs from overs 15 to 40. May be 60 from last 10 and ended up with 230-240.
On such pitches you can’t just put your foot down and hit through the line. Gambhir and Manjrekar said that you have to bring your backfoot game into play. Push the ball square off the wicket. Be content with 3-4 runs an over.
What we saw was that almost all Indian batsmen barring Rahul, struggled to get 3-4 singles an over. They kept on hitting fielders instead of gaps. It wasn’t entirely their fault. Such a pitch has become extremely rare in modern ODI cricket. They have not played on such pitches enough to hone their skills on accumulating runs through the middle overs.
This brings us to the discussion of why no 90’s or 2000’s team tried the modern approach of stacking the batting and keep batting aggressively. Probably because batsmen had to play on more varied wickets, a top 5 batsman had to develop his overall game and not just the hitting game. So it was not possible to get 5-6 batsmen who can continue to be aggressive throughout the innings. If they tried, they might end up being bowled out soon, because they weren’t as skilled in hitting those shots consistently.
Players are certainly products of the conditions and and the times they play in.
Not Just Cricket 