Derek Pringle

At last, a law to help out the poor bowler! (but much more is needed)

Among all the law changes proposed by MCC’s World Cricket Committee comes the shock that one is designed to aid bowlers. As ever, with committees, the devil is in the detail and while limiting the thickness of bats appears sensible, it won’t make the slightest difference to the bowler’s lot as it stands, with mis-hits continuing to clear the boundary ropes for six.

Bat technology, a bit like that of golf clubs, has increased the size of sweet spots to pretty much any part of the blade below the splice. Where once a batsman would have to strike a ball with perfect power and timing, and make pure contact with a sweet spot the size of a grapefruit in order to clear the ropes at somewhere like the Oval, players routinely achieve the feat now without meeting any of the above criteria.

The World Cricket Committee’s (WCC) proposal, yet to be ratified by MCC’s main committee, is that bats be limited to 47mm (1.85 inches) at the edge and 67mm (2.63inches) from front to back. Clearly some exceed that now, but it is the double whammy of increasing the mass of a bat (without affecting its pick-up), and decreasing the size of boundaries (deemed a necessity under health and safety legislation), which has tilted the balance too far in favour of the batsman. Unless all are considered, though, the WCC’s proposed redress is likely to be as much use as a sticking plaster in staunching a severed artery.

They could, of course, have done something more radical to help the leather flingers, like allow ball tampering or let bowlers follow-through down the pitch a bit further than is currently allowed. But with the WCC comprising mostly batsmen, anything too radical in favour of bowlers was always unlikely.