Look out: Danger ahead!

If the International Cricket Council don’t move to curb win-toss-win-match scenarios as experienced in the Twenty20 World Cup, this will soon become a cricket integrity issue

Win toss and chase under lights. Win game. Win World Cup.

This is the story of the tail wagging the dog. The story of modern T20 day-night cricket in South Asia and the Middle East. The story of prime time TV ratings in India virtually deciding the winner by lottery. IPL, World Cup, even ODIs to some extent are all so heavily influenced by the toss that it will soon become a cricket integrity issue.  

The 2021 IPL was the prediction model for how the World Cup would pan out. Win toss, win game under lights. If you look at all night games involving the heavyweights, the pattern is clear. Every team that won the toss chose to bowl first and inevitably won the game almost every time. When a 50-50 heads or tails call ends up with close to a 90% win ratio, it speaks to a system that is rotten. The integrity of the contest is now not down to the bounce of the ball but the flip of a coin.

World-class Australians

This Australian team is full of world-class cricketers who deserve their moment in the sun (or the moon as it turns out). Their team was balanced in every respect and they held their nerve when it mattered most. They also held their breath when Aaron Finch walked out for the toss because they knew how crucial this was. As it turned out, Australia won the toss six out of seven times. Their one toss loss coincided with being mauled by England who chased brutally under lights. Coincidence? 

Most of the big teams had similar game plans. Win toss, chase under lights, target the late overs and win with at least an over to spare. Overs 17-19 in particular became the death overs in the second innings. A combination of skill and power with the bat, an appalling lack of execution with the ball, crucial dropped catches and of course the dew factor. That is probably the single biggest reason why the toss is now so crucial—the wet ball and perhaps it sliding on to the bat instead of holding in the wicket and gripping.

So where does this leave the game’s administrators at a time when the ever-present threat of betting hangs over the integrity of the game? If winners are this easy to predict, it becomes fertile ground for perceptions of match fixing because any collapse or choke when the odds were overwhelmingly stacked in favour of chasing team might be viewed with suspicion.

Dew factor

World Cup 2022 is in Australia where almost every game will be played under lights and the dew factor can be crucial although not as pronounced as in Asia. T20 cricket has never been afraid to drive innovation. Super Overs, free hits, Super Subs, mid-innings time-outs driven by naked commercial avarice…so what’s the answer to balancing the luck of the toss? Some form of calculation that makes allowance for the historical advantage of chasing under lights, similar to Duckworth-Lewis? The team that loses the toss can make two substitutions at any point in the game? The team bowling second gets a dry (old) ball every over from 15-20?

There is probably no other global sport where you can safely say “win toss, win tournament.” If the ICC remain wilfully blind to that anomaly, they are clearly burying their heads in the Dubai sands. There is a way to bank the money, keep TV moguls happy and still maintain some form of integrity in the contest. Or call it the T20 World Cup 
Lottery instead.

The writer is a Brisbane-based former first-class cricketer

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