Fitzy
NRL Captain
- Sep 10, 2018
- 4,154
- 5,852
Sure but we are as bad as anyone when we bowl 15+ overs of spin a day. 85 is about as good as it gets in quick friendly countries. Sure it’s an issue (like I said) but I don’t think the 81 over of pace day is the one to get to cranky over. This is about as good as it gets. Where’s the umpires accountability in all this? 5 overs short, it’s there job to ensure over rates are maintained. Can’t complain when ICC fine teams at the end and they continue to do it. What do you want to happen? The umpires need to be getting over rates up not the ICC with punishment and not the players. Not the teams job to stare at a clock every over and start forcing the bowler to sprint back and forth whenever you fall behind. When the umpire cracks down on it the onus then falls on the players but until the necessary crack down and systems are in place NZ are as rightful to fall behind on over rate as we are and to suggest otherwise is hypocritical and ignorant.
You have to remember test cricket has evolved a lot and is being played very tactically and aggressively. When there just about isn’t a days play that goes 90 with the extra 30 minutes it’s probably gotten to a point where that’s an unrealistic expectation in the modern game.
You want accountability it has to be the umpires who take it on. Dont think the long format game is the one where you want your product (the players) sprinting back to there mark to get an extra few overs in to keep Mitch222 on a rugby league forum happy. It needs to be far more controlled from ball 1 by umpires and if they are still falling short maybe the expectation needs to change or further systems need to be applied.
Much more complex issue than you waking up one day and deciding points need to be docked. We haven’t bowled a day of 90 in the allocated period outside of maybe the sub-continent in years let alone multiple in a singular test.
For now it’s not a big enough issue to extend upon fines and maybe have an umpire crackdown on it. Every team does it to a pretty similar level. They cost themselves a result because of it, than that’s their bad. The expectation has just become to unrealistic without the cost coming at player health or the quality of cricket being played. Neither of which should be placed as less important than the small number of overs not bowled in a day.
The team that bowled 85 overs with 81 being pace is nowhere near as bad as the team who can bowl 5+ times the amount of spin and fall even more short. And that’s us. Stop complaining about the players and the fine system and start complaining about the umpires and the lack of accountability and action they are taking in fixing it. It’s literally there job.
When you can lose up to 100% of your match fee multiple times a year for it and teams still aren’t fixing it than the issue has become that the expectation of 90 is no longer consistently attainable. Not an issue that can be stamped out of the sport with fines, docked points and skipper suspensions. The expectation is probably what needs to change when next to nobody is maintaining that standard. Regardless if you want the 90, umpires have to be doing there jobs a lot better before ICC start taking rash steps. Umpire crackdown and system changes similar to what you see in shorter format cricket need to be applied before docked points. The onus doesn’t fall entirely on slow players. You want to see quick cricket you saw as quick overrated as you will ever see in a pace:spin bowling load context.
Best bet would be to force teams to bowl spin until they are back level with time but there is way to many stoppages that extend beyond just the bowling side these days that it really isn’t fair to hold one team or entity accountable in a 3 entity issue.
