Shane Warne has novel idea for cricket's shortest form: Four bowlers, five overs in T20?

[MenInG]

How can you make T20 cricket more of an even contest between bat and ball?

Shane Warne had a novel idea during the second game of the series between England and Australia, suggesting that bowlers could have their allocation of four overs increased to five.

The Sky Sports pundit and former Australia spinner believes having four bowlers able to get through five overs in a T20 match would help stop bat dominating ball.

"What about four bowlers bowl five overs?" said Warne, having seen England quicks Jofra Archer and Mark Wood reduce Australia to 3-2 in a game England would go on to win by six wickets.

"I just think it's a better contest between bat and ball - you want your best bowlers bowling as much as you can as T20 is so much in the batsmen's favour.

"When you get a couple of gun bowlers like this [Archer and Wood] you want to give them another over up front.

"Wouldn't it be nice to give them five? You can obviously have eight bowlers bowl whatever but I would like to see bowlers be able to bowl five.

"[Adil] Rashid could bowl five overs in the middle which would be a real good battle for the batsmen against spin, while you can bowl your quicks at the beginning and at the end.

"I reckon it gets rid of the bits-and-pieces and you can pick your best batsmen and best bowlers when selecting your team."

Warne's fellow Sky Sports pundit Nasser Hussain said: "I have always felt T20 cricket needs to bring bowlers back in. I have seen some domestic games recently when, with the boundaries in, it has been a smash-a-thon."

Michael Atherton later added: "It is an interesting idea. Shane always has a fertile imagination when it comes to cricket.

"I have been trying to think about the disadvantages. Would it play against genuine all-rounders? But I can see the advantages. It gives your dynamic, box-office players more of a chance to shape the game."

Ian Ward said: "The all-rounders would still have a role to play if it went wrong for one of your superstars. There is a pressure valve if you have someone like Ben Stokes in your side and Archer, say, doesn't get it right."

https://www.skysports.com/cricket/n...-shortest-form-four-bowlers-five-overs-in-t20

 

[gazza619]

Even greater idea, how about allow 4 bowlers to bowl 12 overs each in an ODI?

Or how about allow teams to land 12 players in tests which will give them the option to play a genuine 5th bowler?

I think Warney needs to stop thinking of cricketing ideas

 

[Golden arm]

4 bowlers is bit too much.
I guess every team should have option of one bowler for 5 overs

 

[ishtiaq_ctg]

Very interesting idea. Im ok with bowlers bowling the 5th over but with slight variations. I would like to see bowlers get an additional over if they can get 3wicket hauls in their alloted overs. That would be interesting and would provide some intriguing tactical phases like would you take risk and back your frontline bowler to bowl an over between 11-15 overs to get wickets so he can than have that additional over? It would be really interesting. In t-20 I would also like teams to have 3 reserve players along with the playing XI. Depending on the game situations, teams should be then allowed to substitute a player from the 3 player bench instead of selecting the 12th man upfront.

 

[Shaddy86]

Teams will play an extra batsman and it will even out the contest. It might even favour the batsmen even more. Not a great idea.

 

[Mamoon]

The game will never be in batsman’s favor simply because a batsman is not allowed to make any mistakes. A bowler is not taken out of the game because of one bad ball or one mistake.

One bad shot, one mistake and you are out, while a bowler has the opportunity to bowl 24 deliveries even if he gets hit for sixes on the previous 23 deliveries.

 

[Hasan123]

Don't like this idea.