Toss Away The Toss And The Tradition?

Although such scenarios where the match was decided solely on the right call by a skipper at the coin toss have not been quite as alarming as the call suggests...

- Sreelata S. Yellamrazu

At the outset, when Faf du Plessis, the South African captain, suggested that cricket do away with the toss altogether, it may have appeared like sour grapes. There was every reason to believe that. After all, South Africa were made to eat humble pie by the spinning web of the Sri Lankan team. That said, this is not the first time a captain has voiced such a seemingly radical move away from tradition with the International Cricket Council (ICC) even recently debating the issue and deciding eventually to put the proposal on hold, for the moment.

The toss did not always have such a disadvantage. It is hard to imagine England would have consented to throwing away the toss in such a key contest as the five Test series against India and leave Virat Kohli, the Indian captain, with the critical choice to either bat or field first. However, as unfathomable as it presently seems, that it was even on the anvil once more and on the agenda of the top governing body suggests that this may be one of the first of the most traditional rituals to go out of Test cricket, at the very least.