The Power Play Overs Should Be More Challenging after New ODI Rules

Amongst the changes that will be implemented in the one day cricket format will be the matter of the power play. Judging by the changes prescribed, which have been on the anvil for a while, it should certainly make the game much more interesting particularly during the period when the fifty overs game suffers for want of eyeballs.

Steven Finn

The power play overs retained their place in the one day game even as the super sub rule bit the dust. However, despite their presence, the power plays had tended to blend into the background rather than part of the plan of suspense and intrigue in the fifty overs format. One of the reasons for that was that the captains tended to view the power plays as cumbersome upon their premeditated thinking. As a result, the power plays themselves fell into a staid pattern wherein the bowling power play was usually taken after the first mandatory ten overs of power play where essentially the field settings remained the same and the fielding captain and bowlers did not have to make too much adjustments. What this resulted in the old format of the first fifteen overs wherein restrictions were applicable.

Similarly the batting power play was pushed further and further by the batting team to the extent that more often than not, the batting power play was taken in the final five overs which were the slog overs in any case. Rather than opting for a scenario of choosing the batting power play at the thirty over mark or the thirty-five over mark when the batting team could maximize its scoring options if it had wickets in hand, the match was once again shifting gears towards predictable patterns of play in the game.

However, the amended rules now suggest that both teams must utilize their respective powerplays between overs sixteen and forty, which means there will be little dozing in the middle overs of a fifty overs match. That should certainly keep the one day game alive even in the doleful middle session as it has sometimes been dubbed when teams settled into their respective patterns.