Silly question, maybe, about cricket

[bobrock]

I always wondered if the current way to decide who will bat or bowl first is fair. I understand the choice is vital and sometimes it may give a huge advantage, so I wonder if woudn't it be better, for example in a Test series of five Tests, to let the home team choose in the 1st, 3rd and final Test, and the visiting team to do it in the 2nd and 4th. If one team wins the toss in all of the Tests doesn't this give them an unfair advantage ? And the same for ODI's or T20 series that are usually played over 3 or 5 matches.

In international tournaments they play each other once and so the toss is inevitable but that happens once every 4 years.

Maybe this has been debated before and the current system is seen by all of you as the best possible way to deal the problem, but I wonder why.

[Futtocks]

The current method gives the winner of the toss a chance to show his judgement by making the right choice based on the conditions on the first day and the forecast conditions for the next four. It is part of being a good captain who also has good advisors.

 

Remember, the winner of the toss can also give his team a big disadvantage with a wrong choice. And over the course of a five day test, a choice that looked good on day 1 might be bad if the conditions change unpredictably.

 

I think things are just right (in this matter at least) as they are. But you are seeing a problem, where I am seeing just another facet of Cricket.

[verbatim]

I have wondered the same thing myself.

One possible problem of your proposal could be if the team "winning" the toss was known weeks before the game this could give the ground staff the chance to prepare a pitch which would be to the advantageous to the home team.

Another alternative would be having the toss before each game, as now, but have a rule that a team can only win a certain numbers of tosses in a series e.g. 3 in a 5 match series.

[tim2]

In Test cricket away teams are increasingly struggling to win series due to unfamiliarity with the conditions and the fact that they have almost no warm up games.

 

One proposal I heard was to let the away captain select whether to bat or bowl in every game.

[marklaspalmas]

In Test cricket away teams are increasingly struggling to win series due to unfamiliarity with the conditions and the fact that they have almost no warm up games.

 

One proposal I heard was to let the away captain select whether to bat or bowl in every game.

 

The more I think about that, the more sense it makes.

[gingerjon]

The more I think about that, the more sense it makes.

 

http://www.ecb.co.uk/news/articles/ecb-trial-change-coin-toss

[marklaspalmas]

http://www.ecb.co.uk/news/articles/ecb-trial-change-coin-toss

 

Makes sense. A well known way of getting the pitch you want is the green top on the first morning to help your seamers. This neatly counteracts that.

[ckn]

The advice I always hear from the ex-captains on Sky is to bat first.  If you think you want to bowl first then slap yourself and bat first.  If you still get people nagging at you to bowl first, slap them and bat first.  If they're still nagging then listen, check the weather forecast and light meters, if it's so overcast that the umpires are doing light meter checking before start of play and the wicket is so green that you'd need a strimmer to cut it then think about bowling first otherwise stick your chin out, ignore everyone and bat first.

[bobrock]

Glad to see my question wasn't so silly after all. Assuming that it's fair to have some kind of advantage playing at home, doing it on a pitch prepared by the home team should be enough, regardless of who bats first ?

[tim2]

Glad to see my question wasn't so silly after all. Assuming that it's fair to have some kind of advantage playing at home, doing it on a pitch prepared by the home team should be enough, regardless of who bats first ?

 

Most pitches, anywhere, are best on the first and second days. Batting first usually makes sense. However, take Trent Bridge last year where the pitch was green, the clouds were covering the sun and Stuart Broad ripped the Aussies apart. After lunch the sun came out and England found batting relatively easy. Clarke would have bowled too if he'd won the toss. Whether the Aussies would have exploited the conditions like England did we'll never know.

The slow turning pitches in Asia usually cause England, Australia, SA, NZ issues because they suit the spinners that grew up in those conditions and most of the non-Asian countries don't have quality spinners and also don't bat in the same style. India struggle on fast or damp pitches. Winning the toss may help them to avoid the worst case scenarios.

[Robin Evans]

I suspect cookey didn't mind losing this toss....

[Mr Wind Up]

People will bring up statistics showing coin tosses don't have any real effect on the outcome of matches.

 

But to me this is the one remaining flaw of the game. I completely agree with what you've suggested. It doesn't even have to be the home team that gets first pick. Just have a toss prior to the first test, and then alternate from thereon. So a home team might decide on the 1st, 3rd and 5th tests, or they might decide on the 2nd, and 4th. 

 

Easy solution that removes all conjecture about coin tosses. 

[Shadow]

I've checked and there's no maybe about it.

Your question is definitely about cricket.

Don't thank me, I'm happy to help

[bobrock]

I've checked and there's no maybe about it.

Your question is definitely about cricket.

Don't thank me, I'm happy to help

 

I am deeply sorry. My english is poor. My aim was to make a question that was definetely about cricket, but maybe was a silly one.

[tim2]

I've checked and there's no maybe about it.

Your question is definitely about cricket.

Don't thank me, I'm happy to help

 

I need to check with the Grammar Police as to whether he was right or wrong - had he said

 

"Silly question, maybe about cricket"

 

then you can definitely attribute the maybe to the cricket and not the question. By adding the extra comma the "maybe" clause could be considered automatically to be about the question. To disambiguate this he could have said "Maybe a silly question about cricket" or "A question about cricket, possibly silly"

 

I remember a German once berating me about the amount of allowed ambiguity in English compared to German. I agreed but pointed out it wasn't my responsibility.

[Wolford6]

The current test  match was always going to be won by the side that batted first. England players went in for their second innings and just swung their bats. The pitch had degraded so much that, sooner rather than later, a batsman would face a ball that would deviate sharply or bounce abnormally.

 

All out 101.

[tim2]

The current test  match was always going to be won by the side that batted first. England players went in for their second innings and just swung their bats. The pitch had degraded so much that, sooner rather than later, a batsman would face a ball that would deviate sharply or bounce abnormally.

 

All out 101.

 

The only way England could have won this game would have been to bowl better on day one and hold their catches. They actually batted OK first time round but it was already too late.

[marklaspalmas]

The current test  match was always going to be won by the side that batted first. England players went in for their second innings and just swung their bats. The pitch had degraded so much that, sooner rather than later, a batsman would face a ball that would deviate sharply or bounce abnormally.

 

IVe always considered that swing-the-bat-cos-sooner-or-later-you'll-get-an-unplayable-delivery to be an appalling excuse for some terrible batting. Any test cricketer using that line wants disgarding.