Get cricket in the mix too

India’s Rutuja Bhosale and Rohan Bopanna pose with their gold medals after the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games mixed doubles in China on September 30, 2023. PIC/AFP

Over the last 147 years since Test cricket was first played, cricket has innovated from time to time, whether it was in the matter of the weight or size of the cricket ball or the introduction of new laws regarding LBW dismissals or the bowlers' front-foot no-ball rule. Changes have been made to the laws of the game in an endeavour to make cricket more popular and more entertaining amongst spectators.

In that respect, perhaps the most significant changes were made in the 1960s and 1970s when one-day cricket matches were introduced, with a view to making the game more entertaining for spectators.

It was then thought that Test cricket, played over five days with a rest day in between, was dying and would not attract crowds consistently. Of course, this was proved to be incorrect, for instance in the early '60s when the Australians thronged to the stadia for one of the most riveting Test series in 1960-61 against the touring West Indies under Frank Worrell.

However, the most significant innovation introduced in cricket to make it more entertaining and spectator-friendly was the introduction of the T20 format. This was now fast-paced cricket, and from an entertainment point of view, it was a great hit, attracting large crowds. The IPL became the finest league that cricket - or for that matter, any sport - has ever known. The introduction of T20 cricket also gave a huge impetus to fielding standards, with players flinging themselves about on the boundary line to save certain boundaries and taking spectacular and breathtaking catches on the boundary line, juggling to stay within the territory of the playing area.

But the last IPL season threw up the criticism that the T20 format had become too batsman-friendly and that seeing sixes being hit virtually off every second ball was making the game boring.

So, what now for the future? How does the game re-invent itself? What new form can it take?

As I see it, in the future, the greatest innovation that cricket can introduce will be Mixed Cricket. Mixed Cricket? Yes, cricket played by teams, each of which will have a minimum stipulated number of female
cricketers in its ranks.

For many years, all the racquet sports - tennis, squash, table tennis, badminton - have successfully included the Mixed Doubles section in their tournaments. So also, for some years now, track and field events have included a Mixed Relay in the 4x100m, where two of the legs are run by female athletes. If these other sports can successfully have men and women playing the same event, why should cricket be left behind?

Undoubtedly, there will be a need to tweak the laws of the game. It would be necessary to provide, for example, that each team, in a mixed match, must have at least four (maybe five) female cricketers and, to make it even more interesting, to provide that the wicketkeeper of the side must be a woman cricketer.

Undoubtedly too, the laws in regard to the weight of the ball will need to be amended. At present, the ball used in men's cricket is heavier than the one in women's cricket matches. But it is not an insurmountable problem to arrive at some uniform weight for mixed matches.

As far as ground and infrastructure facilities are concerned, most cricket grounds hosting international matches today in any case have separate facilities for women cricketers, considering the tremendous growth of women's cricket and the huge increase in spectator interest. That should not be a problem. Any space constraints can be taken care of by providing separate women's changing areas within the larger players' dressing rooms.

The scores and records of such mixed matches will not be added to the players' official career records, but can be separately maintained, as has been done for the Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket matches.

Just imagine how interesting it would be to see a team in which Jemimah Rodrigues bats at No. 4 with Rishabh Pant in at No. 5. Or an opening pair of Smriti Mandhana and Sanju Samson, facing up to Arshdeep Singh and Arundhati Reddy.

Research has shown that the speeds at which women fast bowlers deliver the ball are much lower than the speeds in the men's game. Men's fast bowling speeds vary between 120 to 150 kmph; in women's cricket, the fastest deliveries would be about 120 kmph.

However, in the matter of spin, though women spinners would undoubtedly be slower in the air and off the pitch than their male counterparts, I am sure that the degree of turn in both cases would be more
or less similar.

Such mixed matches would lead to several interesting tactical decisions which may be required to be taken. For instance, with a male speedster like Mohammed Siraj bowling from one end, would the male batsman have to protect his female batter at the non-striker's end, by retaining strike? So too, captains will have to decide which of the overs would be bowled by the women fast bowlers or spinners.

This will add a great deal of interest and variety to the sport. The fear that such mixed matches will result in lowering of standards is misplaced. Both the men's and women's game will benefit from such mixed interactions. And spectator interest will rise manifold.

Since the shorter versions of the game have now virtually become a matter of pure entertainment, such mixed matches have the potential to become the most entertaining form of the game.

This is an idea whose time has come. All it requires is a Lalit Modi-type entrepreneur - or the BCCI itself - to tap into this market and initiate a new cricket league, featuring mixed matches. It is something worth looking forward to.

Fredun De Vitre, a former radio and television commentator, is now a member of the legal fraternity
Clayton Murzello's Pavilion End column will be back next week
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.