The bowler pauses at the top of his mark and then surveys the field. As an afterthought, he beckons the captain for a discussion on the field setting.
The two stay huddled in conversation for a minute or two before a slight change in field is made. Fine leg is made to come in and mid-wicket is pushed back.
It makes no dramatic impact to the game. But what happens is that precious time is lost while field changes are made in the middle of the over.
Time wasting tactics and unnecessary breaks have caused a major headache in cricket over the last few decades. Today, it is at its lowest point in 11 years in all formats of the game.
There are unscheduled drink breaks, need for new gloves in the middle of an over, or just a long chat for no rhyme or reason. Though the International Cricket Council (ICC) has clamped down on such malpractices by imposing fines and bans, the desired effect has not been achieved.
Cricket continues to meander along, with Test matches and even One-day Internationals and T20s going into extra time. The overs are never completed on time and the game gets extended each time.
With so much money in the game, a mere fine makes no difference to any player and they are willing to take the setback but will not change their habits.
Now the MCC World Cricket Committee is planning to introduce the “shot clock” which will monitor the time taken between overs so as to judge the delays caused in that period.
It will also check on how much time is wasted when a new batsman walks in and whether the field is in place to receive him.
However, it will not monitor the time the bowler takes to complete an over as run-ups differ and there may be boundaries hit during the over which may cause time loss.
In other words, it will monitor the dead time in the game. What’s interesting is that the committee has proposed immediate run penalties which may deter time wasting.
The committee consists of three top players in Saurav Ganguly, Kumara Sangakkara and Ricky Ponting. They ought to know well all about time tactics and its adverse effects.
There was a time many decades ago when an over-rate of 120 was achieved very easily. There was no time wasting and bowlers and fielders got to their positions very quickly to keep the game moving.
Alas, the growing professionalism in the 1960s brought about many adverse changes and players chose to delay things in order to avoid the inevitable.
Many time wasting tactics were devised, particularly when things were not going the team’s way. Bowling down the leg side, changing the field frequently, buckling and unbuckling pads, pausing in the run-up tie shoe laces all slowly became part of the game.
One of the worst series was when England visited India in the 1980s and barely 70 overs were bowled in the day. There was a deliberate attempt to keep the overs down so that draws were achieved in high scoring games.
This was a murder of cricket and the poor spectators were made to pay a heavy price. Thankfully, the ICC imposed the 90-over rule per day and the game began to move forward, albeit still slowly.
The MCC move must be welcomed and supported. Cricket needs to re-invent itself, if it wants spectators to throng stadiums like before. By robbing the spectators of play, the players are doing disservice to the game.
They and the team must be punished harshly for this. They are paid astronomical sums to play and they better justify it.
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#The views expressed in this column are those of the author and Pune365 does not necessarily subscribe to the same.
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