Premium Wednesdays | What difference a DH could make for your XI

There is — understandably, in some cases — some squeamish response when you propose anything containing explicitly American roots into a non-American sporting realm — a broader reflection of society overall, really.

However, one cannot deny the inherent similarities between Australia’s most institutionalised summer sport and the so-called ‘great American pastime’.

Everyone loves a good crack of the bat whichever side of the Pacific you may dwell on, and maybe — just maybe — there’s a concept or two we could pilfer just to see if it might spice up our local scene somewhat.

That Shohei Ohtani guy, for instance. He certainly knows how to hit. So much so that he enjoyed the first year of a US$70 million contract doing nothing but hitting, with his pitching arm shut down.

Anyhow, more than half-a-century ago, one of Major League Baseball’s two conferences adopted the DH as a substitute in the batting line-up to avoid making whoever a team’s active pitcher was at the time swing the bat as well.

Pitchers throwing the ball at each other while the other is batting out of sheer petulance and retaliation does have a shelf life, as it turns out.

Anyway, one of the key benefits people believed in with the DH was an uptick in batting averages and total activity on the bases with one less liability forced to don the helmet.

That’s not to say cricketing bowlers are automatic easy prey on offence — we’ve certainly seen a few examples of lower-order heroics.

Frankly, though, there’s more to be gained if a DH could insert into a line-up to give a late supercharge to a team’s innings, whether that was in regular league play or perhaps just the T20 tournaments.

Guess what? There’s already a little bit of support at the professional level as well.

While the Indian Premier League might not have a super-size following Down Under among non-gamblers, presumably due to the unfriendly time zones, it’s already hitched its star to the DH wagon.

While authorities ultimately declined to trial the concept at the last Twenty20 World Cup, the conversation is undoubtedly growing.

Closer to home, with the likes of former men’s Big Bash League employee and Melbourne Stars WBBL coach Trent Woodhill throwing his public support behind the idea, it begs the question: why not now in the shorter formats of the game?

More to the point: why not here?

Sure, we know that guys like Mitch Marsh and Jake Fraser McGurk can stand out if given the opportunity to focus on nothing but pure bat-on-ball action.

Let’s take it back to Cricket Shepparton, though.

Arguably, the greatest benefit a DH could offer here in this district is the priceless chance to give someone building a resume in the lower grades a taste of the top level without having to lean into areas they may not excel at.

It’s tricky to make this point without unfairly singling someone out, but how many folks can you name batting at 11 who would really appreciate the chance to keep doing that every week if there’s another way?

The only particularly prominent issue that would threaten its viability is the idea that a DH, inserting at nine wickets down, might not actually play any cricket at all that day if their side’s top and middle order does the job.

A valid concern; nobody wants to miss out.

Is it better-placed, then, to have the option of throwing your DH anywhere in the line-up you like? Perhaps even opening in a Fraser-McGurk type way?

After all, major league sides are seldom batting their DH at nine despite technically replacing the pitcher; the aforementioned phenom Ohtani, for example, was leading off the Dodgers’ order.

Did a damn fine job at it, too, now a World Series winner after zero minutes on defence in 2024 — no doubt thinking to himself, ‘Why should I ever play left field again?’

That said, it’s not a vehicle to deliberately promote laziness by any means.

All proposing the concept entails is opening up the question of whether someone who’s laser-like with willow in hand could do just as effective — or perhaps more so — of a job for their side by taking other aspects of the game off their plate?

Sure, there’s never anything wrong with coming up learning all there is to learn as a kid, and country cricket will never be short of all-rounders.

That should by all means continue to be encouraged.

It’s something which could prove to have just as much positive effect on bowlers — one of whom would be performing that task exclusively in each team, presumably — and frankly, a trial worth experimenting with here.