Former Australia captain Ian Chappell said that T20 cricket is currently inclined too much in favour of entertainment when he felt it should only be 40 per cent of that and 60 per cent sport.
Australia won their maiden T20 World Cup title. (Reuters Photo)
HIGHLIGHTS
- Over 60 percent of matches in the T20 World Cup were won by teams batting first
- Australia beat New Zealand in the final to win their maiden title
- Both the semi-finals were won by teams who batted first
The T20 World Cup was reduced to becoming a “win the coin flip, win the game” event due to the lopsided advantage for teams that batted second, former Australia captain Ian Chappell has said. Over 60 percent of the matches in the tournament were won by teams batting first, including the semi-finals and the final.
Chappell hailed Australia for how they played in the final against New Zealand to win their maiden title.
“Australia finally won the major trophy that has eluded their grasp for more than a decade – the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. They clinched the trophy by clouting deliveries to and over the boundary, while producing a mixture of bowling that combined just enough wicket-taking with the right amount of containment,” Chappell wrote in his column for ESPNcricinfo.
“They also had the good fortune to win the toss when it really mattered, in a tournament where the major matches too often became a ‘win the coin flip, win the game’ event. That was one of the major flaws in a tournament that achieved quite a lot of success,” he added.
Chappell said that there needs to be changes made into the T20 format sothat the balance can be brought back to being in favour of sport more than entertainment.
“There needs to be a wide-reaching survey into the changes required to improve the T20 format. To make it even more popular than it is, tournaments have to include a way to ensure the game doesn’t become a matter of winning the toss. There seem to be two widely diverging views on T20 cricket,” said Chappell.
“It is fine when middled deliveries finish up in the stands but a bowler should be extremely angry if a blatant mis-hit still clears the ropes. This problem is not so pronounced on larger Australian grounds, but I’m not sure what genius produced the ludicrous mixture of better bats and smaller boundaries. This combination is reducing bowlers to virtual bowling machines. It is a serious slight on good bowlers and needs to be rectified immediately,” he added.
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