Smarter rules key for one-day cricket to survive

There is hope Anil Kumble, the new ICC Cricket Committee chairman, can make good recommendations to make 50-over cricket interesting.

Anil Kumble will head the ICC's Cricket Committee. Mario Tama / Getty Images

Last week, the ICC appointed Anil Kumble as the chairman of its Cricket Committee.

The former India leg-spinner, and England's former captain Andrew Strauss, will join the committee that includes such names as Mark Taylor, Kumar Sangakkara, Tim May, Gary Kirsten and Ravi Shastri – all of them known to have contributed to the game off the field as much as they have on it.

Judging by the interviews he gave in the recent past, it looks like the former India captain is keen to take Test cricket forward.

Kumble, though, would do the game a lot more good if he could address some of the shortcomings in 50-over cricket as well.

Recommendations made by the previous committee included allowing for two bouncers per over, the only good news for seamers. Spinners were to be given a raw deal by a proposal to reduce the number of fielders in the 30-yard circle from five to four during non-Powerplay overs.

Suggestions from even earlier, such as shorter boundaries and the use of a new ball at each end, have not helped slow or fast bowlers' causes anyway.

Kumble must therefore persuade the ICC to make one-dayers more competitive between bat and ball by calling for boundaries to be extended and pushing for a recommendation made earlier – of increasing the number of possible overs per bowler from 10 to 12.

Given that Kumble made the same suggestion to the Indian board to implement in domestic one-day games, why not then make a case for it at the ICC meetings?

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