Why Cricket Needs a Balance Between Bat and Ball
The National Curriculum mops up a range of games under the generic title "Striking and Fielding". In its search for simplification, it omits the other crucial component of these games - bowling. Once that is included within the definition, then one game separates itself from the others in the category. That game is Cricket.
Other games have in common a single factor: the batsman attempts to hit every ball delivered as far as possible. Every shot is an attacking shot and the aim of each batting attempt is to despatch the ball as far as possible. That is how Cricket has been different for two hundred years.
The soul of Cricket is the balance between bat and ball. The endlessly subtle combinations which cause the balance of power to shift constantly, reflecting the age and state of the ball, the nature of the pitch, the length of the batsman's innings and the stage of the game. None of this appears to exist in the same way in Baseball, Softball or Rounders. Cricket is also the only one of these games where the bowler aims to pitch the ball on the ground, which brings into play a whole range of other factors relating to the surface on which the ball bounces and the nature of the ball itself.
The rich range of pace and ball movement created by swing, spin and seam are all the weapons in the bowler's armoury. All means by which he may confound, frustrate or defeat the batsman. As a result of this, the batsman's role becomes equally complex, requiring a balance between attack and defence, patience and proactivity, risk and reward.
To reduce the game to an attempt to hit every ball as far as possible is to fundamentally change its character. To strip it of its richness is to deny much of its subtlety. The shorter the game becomes, the more the value of the batsman's wicket is devalued. All of this penalises the bowler, together with heavier bats, shorter boundaries and fielding restrictions
Shorter forms of the game, whether Kwik Cricket, T20 or anything in between, have an undisputed value. They make cricket accessible in circumstances in which there would otherwise be none, they provide an experience of the game that is fast moving and simple to understand. And they provide an introduction to the game to whet the appetite for something that a smaller number of people will find altogether more compelling. But it is only the more complex forms that provide access to the enduring fascination of cricket.
And that is the timeless, shifting balance between bat and ball