On the ropes: of shrinking cricket ground sizes

For the past couple of years, there have been a lot of discussions on the imbalance between bat and ball in limited-overs cricket or to put it simply, how cricket has become a batsman’s game.

Be it the swinging English conditions or the seaming and bouncing conditions Down Under or the spin-friendly Asian pitches, scoring well above 300 is no longer a daunting task. Experts reckon that this has a lot to do with the larger bat sizes, no more than four fielders till the 40th over, flat pitches around the world and the use of two new balls from each end.

But what a lot of experts and pundits do not seem to be focusing on is the shrinking size of cricket grounds world over.

Historically, cricket has always been a batsman’s game and with the advent of T20 cricket, it has just made the sport more inclined towards the batsman. Spectators are rather interested in watching high scoring matches as compared to low scoring ones.

As a result, the average size of the playing field has been limited to a meagre 65–70m from the centre of the pitch in most stadiums compared to 80–85m stadiums earlier. This has led to top edges and miss-hits going for sixes, teams scoring heavily during the middle overs, etc. To back this argument with numbers, in the list of the top 10 highest chased totals, 7 have come in the last 8 years.

If we see the stadiums Down Under of the 1980s, they used to be really big. Players used to run fours easily as the square and the straight boundaries use to be no less than 80–85m.

This gave a chance to the fielding team to defend a low score as well. But nowadays, even a score of 320–330 is not a winning score courtesy to the shrinking size of the playing field. With the increasing size of bats, the situation has only worsened.

Case in point is the Eden Park stadium in New Zealand, where fielders virtually stand no chance beyond the 30-yard circle as the straight boundaries are no more than 45m. The average dimensions of international stadiums now vary from 60–65m, which makes it easy for the batsman to clear the ropes.

This is the case with most of the stadiums in New Zealand, where the boundaries are no more than 55-60m. If we talk about stadiums across the globe, the scenario remains the same with few exceptions like; the grounds in Australia or South Africa are fairly big, giving the fielding side a chance to dominate the game.

Advertisements boards have also led to the diminishing size of the playing field as every brand wants to advertise heavily on every platform that it is available to them. With the encroachment of advertisements boards in the playing field, ground administrators need to place a gap between the ropes and the boards to avoid any hazardous collision of any fielder with the advertising boards. Hence, bringing the boundary ropes well inside the designated playing area was the only solution that the ground facilities and administrators had.

Traditionally, a cricket stadium used to be a circular one. This was done to maintain equal dimensions from the center of the pitch to the boundary ropes in any direction. Off late, a few cricket stadiums around the world have started playing host to other sports as well.

In New Zealand and South Africa, the cricket stadiums are used for rugby matches as well. Rugby fields are mostly rectangular in nature, which changes the dynamics when a cricket match is being played on the same field. The dimension doesn’t remain constant across the playing field, resulting in shorter boundaries.

The ICC recently took some steps, such as limiting bat size and allowing an extra fielder outside the inner circle for the last 10 overs, to make limited-overs cricket more competitive. The way I see it, the ICC should also come up with standard dimensions for all international stadiums.

A stadium that does not meet the adequate dimensions should not be allowed to host international matches. While this may not completely bring equilibrium to the “imbalance” I referred to above, this will be a “drive” in the right direction.