Sachin Tendulkar has spoken out in favour of bowlers, reiterating that having two new balls in ODI cricket eliminated reverse swing and also prevented the balls from getting soft or losing colour. He also spoke for having the extra fielder inside the circle to restore the balance between bat and ball in the 50-over game.
The ODI World Cup will be held in India in October-November this year.
“I feel all three formats are completely different. Somewhere I do feel (that in the) one-day format, people need to have a look at it closely,” Tendulkar said on Friday during an interaction with journalists in Mumbai ahead of his 50th birthday on Monday. “I feel there is an imbalance between the bat and the ball. It is too much in favour of the batters at this point.
“With two new balls, even in the 25th over, the ball is literally 12 or 13 overs old. There is no such thing as reverse swing or the discolouration of the ball, or the ball becoming soft. These factors really put a lot of pressure on the bowling side. There were challenges (for batters) where one did not pick the ball because of the discolouration. That was an advantage for a bowler.
“And with field restrictions, we need to balance that out. Give some advantage to the bowlers as well. I find that element missing in ODI cricket right now.”
The batting legend pointed out that with five fielders inside the ring from overs 11 to 40, spinners were being forced to bowl a defensive line.
“Also with the introduction of five fielders in the ring… I was speaking to a lot of spinners and the overall opinion is that ‘we cannot change our line’,” he said.
“If an offspinner is bowling, he is forced to bowl a middle-stump line. Because you either have to have your deep point in the ring or you need to bring in the long-off because on the on-side, you have three fielders in the deep and here you can have only one fielder in the deep.
“So they cannot deceive a batter by getting him to play a cover drive. The overall opinion is that ‘we have to kind of settle for a defensive line’. I would say that some adjustments need to be made.”
The former India captain said Test cricket must be played on all kinds of pitches and tracks that assist seam movement are not the only ‘good surfaces’.
“The game is becoming faster and the newer generation wants to see things happening. Who starts a conversation? Now I am speaking a different language, the person who always asks a question is a bowler. If that pitch itself is not interesting enough, bowlers will have no option but to choose a defensive line and play a patience game,” he said.
“Batters also know that if there is not much happening off the surface, ‘I do not need to do anything out of the box’. In return, what happens? There are lesser eyeballs...
“There needs to be good surfaces but they cannot always seam around, they can still spin, bounce a little extra or not as much, sometimes they are as fast or slow, and that is what Test is all about.
“You need to travel around the world, play with Kookaburra or Dukes or SG ball in India. Test cricket is all about playing on different surfaces and different opposition and one has to be good enough to adjust to all challenges.”
