Super Over rule in T20 cricket is plain preposterous

Rajasthan Royals celebrate their win over Kolkata Knight Riders after a Super Over

Cricket is a beautiful game, has been that way for years and years, and it will continue to remain an enthralling sport for generations to come. It’s breathtaking to watch, and like any other popular sport, continues to evolve with what it has to offer. With evolution arises the need for cricketers to reinvent themselves, and you got to put it down to administrators and founders of the game for their affinity towards coming up with changes in rules of the game, and thereby hope to make cricket more exciting than what it was yesterday.

As a result, a spectator who yesterday enjoyed Rahul Dravid’s potential to resist even the quickest of bowlers penetrating his rock-solid defence, enjoys watching AB de Villiers falling to his knees and paddling Dale Steyn over short fine-leg for a Yes Bank maximum.

So these changes continue to happen in world cricket today, and it would be goofy on my part to state that the aforementioned piece of brilliance from AB de Villiers is the pinnacle of all the inventions that a cricketer can come up with, because as like our lives, cricket will evolve and we would be grateful that there is always something that won’t disinterest us when we buy a ticket to watch our cricketing superheroes showcase their art of batting and bowling.

As much as a spectator can embrace the changes in stipulations of the game, and the consequent change in the dynamics of it, some of the tweaks injected into the game are no less than contentious.

Tweaks in the modern game such as the rule of 5 fielders inside the 30-yard circle in One Day cricket, the dis-allowance of a by-runner for a batsman who is genuinely injured, and one or two other changes have brought about some colossal bewilderment in the cricketing fraternity. Yes, cricket has become exhilarating to watch because of the overwhelming shift in the balance of the game becoming more batsman-oriented, and conspicuously, bowlers being hard done by.

While it’s difficult to touch upon every change that the cricket’s governing body, the International Cricket Council enforces, the ‘super-over’ rule in possibly the most followed format of the game, T20 cricket, just begs to be ridiculed, seriously. Why do I say that? Read on.

At the end of 40 overs, if both teams remain on parity, the game becomes a ‘tie’, which was the case until 2008 when the ICC came up with the rule called as ‘super-over’ or the eliminator, which forces a result solely based on what the two teams involved in the game can do in a matter of just a single over allotted to them.

Draw was a fair result is a cliche in the world’s most popular sport, football. And, a tied game in cricket also deems or demands a similar value.

The thing with the super over is that it undermines a team that played well for a course of 40 overs, or a team that did well to claw it’s way back into the game from a situation of jeopardy. And, in a case where both teams were not superior than the other, a tie is the greatest result and everyone who watched that game should be happy that it ended in a tie and comprehend that the corresponding cricket match wasn’t worthy of a result.

Also, a super over, which can be bowled by a single bowler, and with the batting side stifled to using just 3 batsmen, it makes the other personnels in both the sides simply null. Not so sure whether it is judicious to force a result in such an irrational manner.

Cricket has the unique pedigree of being possibly the longest sport, in terms of duration to produce a result. Test cricket, which is played over 5 days goes on to underline the pedigree of the game, the 50-over cricket, which is completed in 7 odd hours goes on to reiterate the long duration that is required to attain a result in cricket, and further down the line is T20 cricket, which gives an outcome in three to three and a half hours.

What the super over rule does is, it even shrinks the game by such a massive margin that you get a result in 20 minutes of playing the game, in which both the teams bat and bowl and it makes the 40 overs that were played prior to arriving at the tied result inconsequential. Consequently, the pedigree of the game is lost.

If I were to voice my opinion on the tweaks that continue to be injected into cricket, I’d weed out the super over rule firstly, and as I have furnished above, I think I have enough reasons to go ahead and say that “super-over rule in T20 cricket is plain preposterous”!