Former umpire Simon Taufel has called for a better balance between bat and ball in T20 cricket, suggesting that one bowler should be allowed to bowl five overs instead of the existing four-over quota. Currently, every bowler is permitted a maximum of four overs in the shortest format and Taufel, regarded as one of the greatest umpires of the modern era, believes relaxing the restriction for one bowler could add a new tactical dimension to the game.
"I've made a couple of suggestions to a couple of different leagues, which are yet to be given the time of day. But I'd love to see - I'd love to see again - bat and ball be more equalised in limited-overs cricket," the 54-year-old Australian said.
"I'd love to see in T20 cricket one bowler bowl a fifth over. If a batter can be out there for the whole innings and score 100 from ball number one, we're limiting all the bowlers to four overs. Can we actually maybe give one bowler one extra over, to try to even up a dominant batter versus a dominant bowler? You know, so those sorts of things. I'd just like to see how we can rebalance the scales a bit," he added.
Taufel, who won five consecutive ICC Umpire of the Year awards between 2004 and 2008, said he does not endorse all recent rule changes, including the Impact Player rule and strategic timeouts. "Not all changes are good. Sometimes things aren't broken. And we go changing things just for the sake of a marketing gimmick, which, we've got to be careful in that space," he said.
When further prodded, Taufel said: "Well, look, IPL has the impact player. ILT20 has a super sub. My core cricket tells me that I'd love to see 11 players taking on 11. I'd love to see all-rounders, more all-rounders in the game." "I'd love to see the strategy of 11 on 11, not changed or impacted because of an impact player who might only bat for two balls and doesn't field. Where is the value in that? I do like those traditional aspects of the game..." The timeouts - you know, they certainly break the momentum, and they do sort of cause that pregnant pause in the game. Maybe that deserves a bit of a rethink."
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