Dew has made 50-overs cricket an unfair playing field. Anyone who watched the matches in Ranchi and Raipur will know what I’m talking about. Whichever team wins the toss bowls first, and immediately gains an unfair advantage over the opposition. And with India’s toss luck continuing to baffle, South Africa have enjoyed a significant edge in both games. While India did win in Ranchi, they weren’t able to defend 358 in Raipur – something that could indeed be attributed to the dew, which made good bowling almost impossible.
That’s what brings me to this piece: Why can’t we move 50-over games back to the day format, as was the case in the 1990s? Or even consider a slightly later start – say 11:30 am – and finish by 7 pm, so that both teams get the same playing conditions? When day-night games were introduced, they were a novelty. Now, they aren’t. Day-night games don’t add much to the sport anymore, and it’s worth considering whether, for some venues at least, returning to day games makes more sense.
In Raipur, there was a moment when the umpire simply decided to change the ball after seeing that it had become unusable. This has happened time and again, and such situations render bowlers almost helpless against quality batting units. While we may accuse Prasidh Krishna or Harshit Rana of leaking runs, the truth is that the conditions were heavily stacked against them. When bowlers can’t grip the ball, it becomes a lopsided contest. A quality spinner like Kuldeep Yadav couldn’t hold the ball properly, and there was little he could do about it.
You don’t want the format to be reduced to a gamble. It could well be that the team winning the toss ends up winning 80 percent of the games when dew becomes the deciding factor. Tosses can’t be the reason cricket matches are won, yet that’s what has started to happen. The essence of sport is a level playing field. There should be equal opportunities for both teams, and in the absence of such basics, it’s no longer sport that’s being played.
To their credit, the Indian team has handled this sportingly. While KL Rahul did mention the dew factor at the prize distribution ceremony, they also tried to downplay it by saying they needed a few extra runs. But taking bowlers out of the contest is, in itself, a bad thing. Cricket is a game of bat and ball, and bowlers aren’t there just to be hit around. They are equal stakeholders, but with heavy dew, that’s no longer the case.
With Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma playing the format, filling stadiums isn’t an issue. And if people could tune in at 9 am IST for games from Australia, there’s no reason they wouldn’t do the same for home games. An 11:30 am start would ensure the match finishes before the dew sets in, giving us a fair competition between bat and ball.
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Also Read Dew factor: Did India miss a preparation trick in Raipur?
