Will the game’s oldest tradition go for a toss?

That old chestnut, the spin of the coin, or the toss, is back in the news with the ICC Cricket Committee debating next week whether it should be done away with altogether. The thinking is that it will stop home teams from preparing pitches that suit their strengths.

With the toss done away with and the visiting captain being given the option to bat or field first, the thinking is that pitches will be prepared which are good for both teams and does not favour the home team. At the same time there is also talk that visiting teams will no longer have the option of not playing a day-night Test but will have to play one if the home team’s board schedules one.

Way back in 1993, after the English team had suffered a whitewash in India, the cry went up from the British media about how the toss made the difference. I remember suggesting then that the toss should be done away with but of course my accent was not quite proper and so it was ignored. Some years down the road, an Australian captain suggested the same and just about every British writer stood up to applaud.

Now, the ICC Cricket Committee chaired by Anil Kumble will take a call on whether the toss should be abolished altogether. This is a committee with some of the most eminent cricketing minds and representative of just about every stakeholder in the game apart from the spectator. If a spectator representative was in the committee, it would be a no-contest that the toss should stay as can be seen by the response from the crowd as soon as the coin is flipped and the match referee announces if the visiting team’s captain has called correctly or not.

What the committee could do is to revisit the baffling decision they took to fine the fielding team five runs for fake fielding where the fielder pretends to have the ball in his hands and shows he is about to throw when it isn’t even in his hands.

Cricket is all about deception where a bowler is trying to deceive the batsman and get him out. So should that be fined too? A fast bowler bowling a slower delivery or the knuckle ball is only trying to get a wicket. A leg-spinner bowling a googly or an off-spinner bowling a carrom ball or doosra are all trying to fake the batsman and get him out. How about a batsman who plays the reverse sweep or a switch hit. Should these shots also be banned because the batsman has faked the bowler? That decision last year has got to be simply because there must have been a collective brain fade in the committee.

If they have some time to spare, maybe they should also look at the issue of leg byes. Why should the fielding side be penalised when a batsman is not good enough to play the ball with the bat and it goes off his body or leg-guards?

These are far more important than debating about the toss, which has been around ever since the game began.

Will Anil go down in history as the chairman of the committee that decided to do away with the oldest tradition in the game? We will know by the end of the month.