Get rid of the toss already
Increasingly, cricket is becoming more about skills on the field and less about fortune. While we wait for the ICC to start using technology to aid the umpires, there’s one other thing that can be looked at. The toss.
In Test matches in particular, but also on certain dew-prone grounds for ODIs, the toss can sometimes make a huge difference. Batting on a 5th-day pitch is almost always tougher. So what to do if a captain runs into a luckless patch? There have been numerous cases where one captain or another, worldwide, has lost a slew of tosses in a series. At times, this alone can decide the fate of a series. To prevent such an occurence, the captains of both the teams should agree that each of them will take turns to decide what to do (bat or field) in every other game. There should only be one toss in the first game to decide who goes first. In the next game, the other captain would have the choice of making the decision, and then back to the first captain for the game after that. And so it goes on.
Of course, there’s still a chance of luck intervening, but less so.
May 4, 2008 at 5:23 pm
You’re kidding, right? This is about the most ridiculous thing I have heard from you in a while…lol.
May 16, 2008 at 12:29 am
I suppose you think it’s too ridiculous to warrant a rebuttal.
July 11, 2008 at 8:09 am
Hey, I don’t think that getting rid of the toss will help. There will always be some pitches that will provide more assistance on the first day and others on the last day though the latter is true in majority of cases but not all. You don’t want a team that has played last on a cracking track forced to bat first in next test match on a green top as it would be unfair.
However to make things fairer in a sense how about allowing the losing captain to change one player after the winning captain makes his decision to bat or bowl. Or if the winning captain is not sure he can ask the losing captain to make decision however he now has the option of replacing one of his players.
What do you think?