It’s not an idea everyone necessarily adapts warmly to at first listen, given its foreign influences.
It sparks a worthwhile question, though: would the person on the street feel as strongly inclined to push back against such concepts, were they not of primarily American origin?
Take a look around and you’ll notice a lot of that influence already exists in more important aspects of life, so it’s absurd to consider anything of this variety a bridge too far.
Back to the cricket, though: the great sport of baseball offers more wisdom than a simple positional tweak.
Have a look at the photo above. What a mess, right?
You’ve got two guys headed seemingly the same way trying to sneak a run, or more likely two. How do you even get into the situation that makes a picture like that possible?
Surely the fielding team has to be licking its lips, right? Something is guaranteed to go right for it.
What if the fielders had an opportunity to double their luck, though? If these folks are heading in the same direction from right in the middle of the pitch, there’s a chance of pulling off a legal run out at both ends before they’ve sorted out their feet.
What exactly is a good reason for both dismissals not to stand on the off-chance you can actually obtain them as the fielding team?
You could extend the same logic to catches. Batters would just typically jog down the pitch in resignation when they know they’ve got seconds left with a certain catch coming, and the ICC changed laws a couple of years ago to prevent that passive change of strike.
Baseball designates that runners on base have to tag their current bag if a catch is imminent before taking off, rather than freely dashing for the next one when the ball is put in play.
The sacrifice fly is one of the more common scoring methods, where a catch is taken in the outfield with a runner on third and it’s essentially a sprint against the arm strength of the fielder throwing home.
See where this is going?
You can hold both runners right where they are until the catch is completed — or dropped, that’s an option — and allow them the chance to cross for a run and exchange strike after the wicket is safe in hand, giving the departing runner the chance to make one more contribution on the way out.
It’s perhaps a little unorthodox in the sense that, with one runner out, you would only realistically target the non-striker running up the other end for a double play, but doable nonetheless, no?
After all, batters can often get a little bit uppity about the sanctity of their crease whenever someone makes a Mankad attempt.
Of course, that’s an entirely different debate where it’s easy to adopt the following philosophy: ‘Don’t like it? Legislate against it.’
That’s just an aside that was worth sneaking in there, though. Back to the substance at hand.
While we’re here, can we quickly talk about earned runs?
Can anyone at all explain why runs that come from overthrows in the outfield are somehow credited to the batter?
If you’re scampering through for a single and the throw to your stumps is so wayward it evades everyone and flies to the boundary behind you, what on earth have you done as a batter to warrant receiving five runs to your name on the play?
Runs scored on errors — or as the result of errors that get a runner on base in the first place — are unearned in baseball; that is, pitchers’ records of runs conceded are unaffected.
The runs essentially just exist, good for scoreboard value but without penalising the pitcher or crediting batters for an outcome neither one actually directly created.
It’s worth taking a moment to acknowledge that the two sports already have plenty in common — namely, the fact each is enshrined in a sense of incorrigible national identity, and that any change to either is normally greeted with widespread scepticism.
The sports have continued to gradually evolve through the years nonetheless, however, and, while they don’t have to riff off each other to do so by any means, there’s always merit in having a look at what works elsewhere.
Cricket already does have its share of advantages in the short formats, though — the power play sticks out front of mind.
Baseball has no real direct equivalent and with fielding positions more concrete and rigid on the diamond, there would be an uncontrollable brand of chaos if you trialled similar rules there.
All in all, the goal shouldn’t be to lord one sport over another.
After all, if you can figure out ways to consistently meld what works best with both ... maybe there’s some hybrid game out there waiting to be put into practice.
Hopefully, that doesn’t sound ‘too American’ for the masses.
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