Why Test cricket should give free hits for no balls
Cricket, that most traditional of sports, constantly seeking ways to rip up convention, is nothing without its contradictions.
It thrives on the drama of individual battle: those Allan Donald to Michael Atherton spells that live on in perpetuity. We relish them as cricket at its finest. Drama played out by protagonists who maintained fairness in the quest for dominance.
Cross the line from doing things the right way into the murky world of the wrong way, and few sports are as quick to judge as cricket. Before you know it, a player can be damned with that most scathing of words: cheating.
Let us rule that out straight away. What Jasprit Bumrah did to James Anderson when unleashing a barrage of bouncers in a 10-ball over last weekend was emphatically not cheating. The laws of the game contain detailed guidance on the “bowling of dangerous or unfair short-pitched deliveries”, and the umpires at Lord’s made their judgments accordingly.
The laws of the game also contain clear punishments for those who overstep the popping crease and bowl no balls: one run to the batting side and the bowler can try their luck again.
By bowling four no balls in one over at Anderson, Bumrah did not cheat. But, to many of those watching, it felt wrong.
Even if not intentionally being manipulated, the laws were skewing the balance too far in favour of one party. It, ahem, just was not cricket.
Safe in the knowledge that the maximum penalty he could cost his side each time he failed to have any part of his foot behind the line when delivering the ball was one run, Bumrah could happily unleash at England’s premier bowler without fear of retribution beyond the inevitable response when he came out to bat in India’s second innings. Anderson was struck on the helmet, the hands and the ribs. Some balls were legal and some were not. Only fortune saved him from serious injury, something that every cricketer and supporter accepts as a risk inherent in the game.
But what if that had been sustained by illegal means? What if Anderson had been ruled out of the match by a broken bone suffered on Bumrah’s fourth no ball of the over? It is something that would never happen in white-ball cricket, where no balls are punished with a free hit to the batting side. Had those laws been in place last weekend, there is no way Bumrah would have overstepped so many times – 10 in one day alone.
It raises the question of whether the whiteball no-ball law should
also be introduced in Test cricket to prevent such manipulation.
Bumrah would have adjusted his staccato run-up immediately, Anderson would have been spared the threat of serious injury sustained by illegal means – while allowing for the perfectly fair legal short-pitched bowling to continue – and India would have had six chances to clean up England’s bunny in that over rather than 10.
Conceding one extra run offered Bumrah scant incentive not to
cross the line in his quest to soften up his opposite number. If Anderson had been able to hoick a free hit without consequence after every no ball, it would have stopped the Indian seamer in an instant.
Having survived the extended Bumrah over, it was fitting that Anderson was dismissed moments later to the seventh ball of a Mohammed Shami over elongated by yet another short ball delivered when overstepping.
Thankfully, he was unscathed from his barrage, which had highlighted just how skewed – and open to manipulation – Test cricket’s no-ball laws are. No one wishes to remove cricket’s engrossing heat of conflict, but staying on the right side of the line should not be difficult.
Anderson was hit on the helmet, hands and ribs and only fortune saved him from serious injury