Cricket goes PP!

It’s been two months and some since the Pak series in India. Thankfully, there’s been a break of sorts to Ganguly bashing. The action, if you can call it that, has moved to Chappell gazing. From playing in the backyard with highly competitive kid bro Greg by Ian Chappell, to the oft repeated infamous underarm ball, from getting Greg to agree that the Alphonso is far superior to its Aussie counterpart from Queensland by Sunny Gavaskar, to getting IT pros to bolster Sachin’s mind, from Chappell villa at the Taj Bangalore to the implementation of Edward de Bono’s six lateral thinking hats, it’s all been said, and more.

Just when you think there can’t be anything new on Greg Chappell, an adventurous misquote finds its way into the papers. Usually to do with Tendulkar’s batting. Then, there’s an odd comment by an Indian player of his expectations of the coach (sorry, no spice here) –“ to be fair to all”.

Not surprisingly, the only Chappell related article with any merit I have read was by a Chappell himself. And that too, not by Greg, but by his elder bro, former Aussie pro and now cricket commentator, Ian Chappell. For once, the reader got a glimpse into Greg the guy, be it just a sneak. Ian Chappell yapped about their fierce backyard encounters, how Greg replaced him in the Aussie XI, and how, interestingly, Ian wouldn’t take on an Indian coaching assignment for anything in the world. That pretty much summed Greg, the man, his ambitions and the rough and tumble of Indian cricket. Of course, Ian Chappell has always been the more outspoken of the two brothers. The mind boggles what the Indian press might have written had Ian Chappell been the Indian cricket coach.

Coaching aside, the one-day game has gone bananas. Twenty-20 seems old hat. Enter subersubs, power play 1, 2 and 3. Ironically, all these changes (and not improvements, as Michael Holding points out) are taking place in England, the birthplace of cricket –almost like saying, we created cricket, so can do our best to destroy it. In the just concluded Natwest ODI series between England and Australia, the new ICC rules were implemented for the first time. The likes of David Gower, Ian Botham and Michael Holding gave viewers the lowdown – what were these subersubs? Their implications? And just when you got a vague hang of supersubs, there was talk in nebulous terms like power play 1, power play 2, and hold your breath, power play 3. And I thought cricket was doing a great job reaching across Europe and the Americas. No offence, but catch one of those die hard Yankees’ fans giving this any heed.

But then, cricket is the domain of the civilized world, and we’re part of it. So, I dutifully listened. It was actually quite simple –if not simple minded. It borrows from other popular sport (read as sport that gets more eyeballs than cricket) like soccer. And once you substitute a player, he’s out of the game. Of course, you must announce your supersub (what a branding marvel this) before the game begins.


The implications – In the first two games England’s supersub, Vikram Solanki, was not needed and therefore not used. In the third game when England was wobbling at 90 for 6, Solanki, a batsman, substituted Simon Jones, a bowler. Subsequently, when England bowled, they were a bowler short. Simon Jones lay flat, behind the boundary ropes, understandably, somewhat bemused.

However, as Australia was batting second, they could, if need be, use their supersub - Simon Katich, a batsman, could conveniently replace Glenn McGrath, a bowler. Clearly, the supersub rule favours the team batting second. First, you can get a full ten overs out of your specialist bowler, and once the run-chase is on, you simply swap that bowler for a specialist batsman. Which means, if the rule sticks, you won’t see the batting heroics of McGrath, Nehra and Nel. But then, as Holding says, the people aren’t coming to watch Glenn McGrath bat –if they want to see him bat, let them go see a test match.

As for power play 1, 2 and 3, it’s like the first 15 overs fielding restrictions with a twist. Power play 1 is in fact just that, but works for the first 10 overs instead of the earlier 15. Power play 2 and 3 can be chosen at any point from over no. 10-50, in 5 over stretches, at the fielding captain’s discretion. PP2 implies two fielders remain in catching positions with two outside the circle; where as PP3 does away with the catching restrictions, but two fielders still remain outside the circle.

Predictably, in the first two games, both teams used all their PPs (excuse the expression) in the first twenty overs. In the third, when Gilchrist slaughtered England, it didn’t really matter, and by then, PP was the last thing on anyone’s mind.

Thankfully, with the Ashes round the corner, and test cricket starting in Sri Lanka this week, we won’t have to contend with PP for a while. But then, India’s one-day series in Lanka isn’t that far either. And by then, PP will be to the Indian media, what Greg Chappell is to them today.