by Tim Wigmore
Just as Rashid Khan transformed leg spin, another Afghan teen threatens to transform spin bowling entirely. Mujeeb Ur Rahman’s bowling style is distinctive because it cannot be categorised as either a finger spin or wrist spin. Mujeeb bowls off breaks, carrom balls, doosras, leg breaks and googlies – he is a hybrid bowler and the first of his kind. By straddling different bowling techniques, not only is Mujeeb harder to read and has a wider arsenal at his disposal, but he is able to exploit batsmen’s weaknesses even more specifically. Mujeeb’s success inspired other bowlers, most notably Mujeeb’s teammate at Kings XI Punjab the off-spinner R. Ashwin to start bowling occasional leg breaks and googlies as well.
The innovation is unlikely to stop there. On 27 October 2018 the Sri Lankan Kamindu Mendis bowled right-arm and left-arm finger spin in the same over in a T20 international against England. To the right-handed Jason Roy, Mendis bowled left-arm finger spin, taking the ball away from the bat and then mid-over changed to bowl right-arm finger spin to the left-handed Ben Stokes, taking the ball away from the bat once more. The amount of practice needed to reach an elite standard with both arms is a roadblock to many others doing the same, but Mendis embodies how bowlers will explore new and previously unimagined avenues.
‘You need to be constantly evolving,’ said Samuel Badree. ‘Anything that is different will become successful, at least initially.’
As match-ups become increasingly salient in T20, bowlers such as Mujeeb and Mendis are capable of bowling two different styles of bowling and therefore of targeting both right-and left-handed batsmen.
In spin bowling, the smallest changes in grip or release can have profound consequences for how the ball behaves. Not only will the future involve major shifts in technique such as hybrid spinners and, occasionally, ambidextrous bowlers but the art will continue to become ever more intricate as bowlers push to stay one step ahead of the batsmen.
The rise of general managers
In recent years, football clubs have empowered directors of football, who are responsible for player recruitment and strategy that outlasts the mere head coach, who tends to survive far less long. Largely unknown, general managers have become increasingly important in T20 leagues; with head coaches typically working simultaneously for several sides, general managers are charged with planning for the longer term, negotiating player contracts or conducting auction strategy (depending on the rules of the league) and arranging preseason schedules.
Clubs that are serious about winning will focus more on making sure they are planning for the long term. That will mean more general managers, mirroring similar figures in football and US sports who are ultimately responsible for hiring and firing the head coach. Given the multifarious demands of the role, that is likely to mean more outside voices without experience of playing the sport professionally.
In 2015, Mohammed Khan, an American with his own marketing and consultancy agency, sent an unsolicited email to a private equity and investment firm, about a sponsorship opportunity in Formula One. This led to a meeting with the chairman of the Chalak Mitra Group, who also owned Jamaica Tallawahs, where the two bonded over cricket. A few months later, Khan was hired to run the team as general manager. Khan was responsible for the player auction, and promptly won the Caribbean Premier League in his first season, with the team displaying a new preference for roles over rigid positions and Khan making extensive use of data analytics. His next few years were altogether more taxing, leaving Jamaica after a change in ownership and then having an ill-fated brief stint with the St Lucia Stars. But Khan had hinted at the new importance of general managers in T20.
Bowlers will be paid more
As totals in T20 will rise, so the difficulty of preventing teams from haemorrhaging runs will intensify. But the few able to prevent carnage will become more valuable than ever, and they will be paid accordingly. Far from the brutality of T20 hitting putting bowlers off, the incentives of the market may mean that bowlers have never had it so good.
‘I’ve captained guys in the T10 format and it’s just not a pretty place – 60-yard boundaries with guys teeing off from ball one,’ said Eoin Morgan. ‘It’s an unbelievable challenge but also it presents a huge opportunity for somebody to be really, really good and make a good living and life around it. I think that’s a huge carrot.’ A.R. Srikkanth, Kolkata’s analyst, predicted: ‘Bowling hasn’t taken precedence so far but it will eventually,’ envisaging that the price for bowlers relative to batsmen would increase.
International cricket will gain a new structure
The paradox of international T20 cricket is that it is the most popular format of the sport but, after the creation of new leagues in ODI and Test cricket, it is the one format lacking any overarching context in between World Cups. The problem with most international T20 cricket is its structure: there isn’t one. T20 internationals in between World Cups are essentially friendlies.
From 2018, football replaced a large number of international friendly matches with the new Nations League, a competition that placed teams in groups of four, with promotion and relegation, creating a dynamic competition. The format generated far more interest than the friendly games it replaced.
T20, with smaller margins between teams, ideally lends itself to a Nations League-type format – with, say, a series of groups of four teams each in different divisions, and the competition potentially doubling as part of the T20 World Cup qualification structure. Such a format could lend itself to short and snazzy competitions – say, of four teams playing each other twice each in their division, with the entire tournament lasting ten days and played in one or two countries.
Whatever the solution, insiders believe that international T20s, in their current form, do not do the format justice; many international T20s are played by virtual shadow sides, with countries resting their leading players, especially fast bowlers. Such matches, without clear consequences, mean that potential fan interest – and so economic value – is left untapped.
‘When we have context in the ODI league going forward and the World Test Championship as well it may isolate T20 internationals a little in the sense that they’re all friendlies,’ said Harrison. ‘Bringing context into all international cricket except T20 internationals is going to put pressure on international T20. We don’t want it turning into exhibition cricket, we want it to be top-drawer, high-intensity T20 cricket played with the very best T20 players in the world. Maybe in order to introduce that kind of jeopardy into that we need to introduce context. Qualification gives you a definite potential hook to provide that so maybe we need to create that peril around qualification for World T20.’
Super-fast bowlers
Traditionally bowling actions have been a product of a compromise between competing factors – broadly: speed, accuracy, movement and endurance.
The reduced physical workload of four overs per match and the challenges posed by balls that don’t swing and pitches that don’t seam, opens up the possibility of a new breed of pace bowler: concerned almost entirely with bowling at high speeds.
These bowling actions will likely look and feel very different to traditional bowling actions. They will probably be slingy and more round-arm, resembling a javelin thrower as much as a cricket player. Such bowlers will also be built differently too. They will have distinct training regimes, with high strength and power development emphasised to develop short bursts of explosive movement to attain extreme high ball speeds over 24 balls.
Producing bowlers such as these will require ‘a completely different approach to developing fast bowlers’ according to Marc Portus, head of movement science at the Australian Institute of Sport and a bowling biomechanics expert.
Cricket has already produced a handful of bowlers in this mould. The Australian Shaun Tait and the Pakistani Shoaib Akhtar, who played in the early 2000s, are the most famous examples. Both Tait and Shoaib were clocked at 100 mph and regularly operated in the high 90s. Tait and Shoaib employed bowling actions with enormous pivoting delivery strides and
a slingy, round-arm release that echoed the Australian Jeff Thomson in the 1980s who was also capable of electric speed. Both Tait and Shoaib battled injuries throughout their careers: the sheer physical burden placed on their bodies by their bowling actions was too much to withstand bowling more than a dozen overs at a time. In T20 though, with only 24 balls permitted per bowler, this barrier no longer exists.
Batsmen more like baseball hitters
The emphasis on boundary hitting in T20 will give rise to a new subset of batsmen, more aligned to baseball hitters than traditional cricketers. These players will have techniques designed to maximise shot power and distance with minimal footwork and a strong, stable base and a still head. Their bat swing will be long and clean and they will generally be big, powerful men. They will typically target the leg side because it is the most natural hitting zone but they will evolve to hit over the off side as well.
‘I think guys are going to get bigger and stronger like baseball where the fielders don’t matter,’ envisaged Brendon McCullum. ‘You’ll just take the fielders on. Andre Russell is like that, isn’t he? He doesn’t play sweeps or ramps, he just hits in his area.’
The physique of batsmen will change – and so will the risks of performance-enhancing drugs
As T20 places a greater premium on the physique of players, so an increasing number of batsmen will appear tailor-made to hit sixes. Batsmen will get stronger, with training programmes specifically designed to augment six hitting.
The lessons of the world’s other great bat-and-ball sport, baseball, suggests that some cricketers will be tempted by performance-enhancing drugs. This risk is heightened by the lax standards of drugs testing in T20 leagues around the world. Unless there is a concerted uplift in both the quality and quantity of drugs testing in cricket, the fear will be that cricket will sleepwalk into a doping crisis of the sort that has already befallen baseball.
Spinners will bowl more
Traditionally pace bowlers have bowled at the start and the end of the innings in white-ball cricket and the spinners have operated through the middle. But in T20 where the emphasis is on boundary hitting, spinners returned a lower economy rate than pace bowlers in every single over of the innings. This suggests that spinners have been systematically underbowled – perhaps because captains whose spinners were hit at the start or end of an innings could expect to face far more criticism than captains who bowled pace bowlers then, in accordance with traditional cricket thinking.
The great CSK and KKR teams have already shown what is possible by building spin-heavy attacks, particularly in spin-friendly conditions; so have the CPL’s Guyana Amazon Warriors. Gradually more teams will break with convention and seek to take advantage of this fundamental imbalance between pace and spin. Teams who are set up to deliver at least 16 overs of spin – especially in home conditions – will become commonplace. One team may even make history by delivering all 20 overs by spin.
Spin power hitters will be very valuable
The continued rise of spin bowling and its greater usage will place huge value on those batsmen capable of power hitting against spin. The lack of pace on the ball and the different directions of turn have traditionally made consistent hitting of spin bowling very difficult. Yet the likes of India’s Hardik Pandya – with long levers and rapid hand speed – have shown that it is possible. Until spin power-hitting techniques become a more established part of youth coaching, these players will remain very rare and very valuable.
Innovations to help incoming batsmen
Incoming batsmen can sometimes be seen shadow batting by the dugout, often wielding two bats to help with bat speed when they then have just one in their hand at the crease, and occasionally they’ll be on exercise bikes. Ultimately though, this kind of preparation doesn’t happen nearly enough and is barely adequate as it is.
Innovations like batting cages – essentially pitchside nets or nets in the bowels of the stadium – and virtual reality headsets are tools that could be used to help prepare incoming batsmen. By hitting balls before arriving at the crease or by visualising facing certain bowlers, batsmen can better prepare themselves for arriving in the middle. Installing batting cages might provide logistical challenges to smaller venues but newer stadiums in particular should engineer space for them; nursery grounds and indoor schools could also be used.
Batsmen will start faster
The first era of T20 batsmanship was defined by batsmen expanding their power game, by elevating strike rates from around 130 towards 150. The next era will be defined by batsmen reaching these scoring rates more quickly. Currently many batsmen still take time to ‘play themselves in’ – an approach embodied by Chris Gayle who scores very slowly at the start of his innings before accelerating rapidly later. Higher scoring rates, deeper batting orders and the evolution of the format more generally will place pressure on this approach and greater emphasis will be put on the need for batsmen to start more rapidly. Shorter formats such as the Hundred and T10 will illustrate how players can score with alacrity from their first ball. The signs of improvement are already there: strike rates in the first ten balls of the innings rose from 105.83 between 2010 and 2015 to 112.41 since then.
Greater safety precautions
It is reflective of the changed balance of power in the game that where helmetless batsmen once feared hostile fast bowlers, now – as helmets have come into the game and power hitting has developed – the relationship has been inverted.
In 2017 Nottinghamshire’s Luke Fletcher bowled a full toss to Birmingham’s Sam Hain who smashed the ball straight back towards Fletcher and clattered him on the head. Fletcher was fortunate – he suffered a small bleed on his brain but did not lose consciousness and, after being ruled out of the season, resumed playing again the following year. The incident embodied the dangers facing bowlers, who have traditionally worn no form of protection, and led to the New Zealander Wayne Barnes bowling with a face mask in T20. Umpires have also begun wearing helmets and arm shields.
The years ahead will see bowlers and umpires better protected. Fielders could also be helped by cushioning around the outfield to protect them as they attempt athletic boundary saves and catches. Netting around the boundary edge, as used in baseball, would be a straightforward way to ensure against serious injury or perhaps even a fatality in the crowd. Cricket should not wait until it is too late.
Home and away kits
Unlike other team sports such as football and rugby, the players on the pitch cannot be distinguished from their equipment, with spectators instead relying on which players are using bats to distinguish them from the fielders. But for casual fans the introduction of home and away kits in T20 when teams’ home strips are the same colour would be a simple way to make the game more accessible. Having a second kit could also increase a team’s merchandising revenue.
Owners will become more important
As cricket has been unusual in having such a comparatively unlucrative domestic game, compared with other sports, so it has had relative refuge from team owners who try to bend the sport to their will, as is common in US sports, European football and European rugby. Indeed, while the names and motivations of owners in these sports is a common point of discussion among fans and the media, owners of specific teams have largely been ignored in cricket. But one by-product of the growing strength of club, compared to country, cricket is likely to be more interventionist owners.
‘More pressure will come from franchise owners to have a stake in decision-making,’ said Jon Long, former head of strategy at the ICC. ‘Cricket has been remarkably effective in keeping its major leagues under the control of its national governing bodies. This might not change in the coming five years but if it does change then private investors will start to exert greater influence over scheduling, player salaries and income, which will bring the leagues into greater conflict with the international game and change the landscape more dramatically.’
Owners could provide yet another source of
conflict in a game already brimming with tensions between different factions. Sports owners are overwhelmingly motivated by a desire to make cash for themselves – as with any business – so will be inclined to push for more matches and longer league seasons, so that they can sell the broadcasting rights for more. The tensions familiar to other sports, between member boards and private owners, may come to cricket too.
Shorter formats won’t gain the sporting integrity that T20 has
T20 is not an end in itself. It has also heralded a new era of experimentation with even shorter formats – the T10 format, and England’s new Hundred competition. Indeed, T20 itself can be viewed in the context of earlier experiments – the Hong Kong Sixes competition, which has run since 1992, and the Cricket Max competition in New Zealand.
Such experimentation is likely to be ratcheted up even further in the years ahead, as organisers attempt to create an even shorter format of the sport. These formats are likely to continue, and gain in popularity, but retain the feel more of an exhibition than cricket that really counts.
‘I see the shorter 100-ball and T10 as an avenue in for people who want to play cricket for an hour or two hours, that’s it,’ said Eoin Morgan, England’s captain and an avowed supporter of the sport experimenting with new formats. ‘I think T20 will still be the flagship.’
Even Tom Harrison, the chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board and instigator of the new Hundred format, shared a similar view. ‘For us the Hundred is just another format of short-form cricket. I don’t see it as a fourth format or anything like that. I think it is optimising the opportunity that we’ve got to appeal to fans,’ he said. ‘I don’t see it as a replacement at all for T20 and it’s not designed to usurp the fantastic job that T20 does for cricket around the world.’
And so while the number of formats may well mushroom further in the years ahead, these incipient and even briefer forms of cricket are best understood as a gateway to T20 rather than a threat to it.