England and the West Indies will take part in a new experiment when they meet for the opener of Twenty20 in Barbados. For the first time in an international match, teams will be able to stop runs by bowling too slowly.
At Kensington Oval, fielding teams must be ready to bowl the first ball each within 60 seconds of the previous owner’s end. Otherwise they will receive an immediate five-lap penalty. If the outfielder is penalized first, they will begin their own inning at -5 runs; If the second side is hit, their total and the chasing team’s target will be reduced by five runs.
The new rules come in a broader context: the sport’s focus on speed of play. Rugby, tennis, basketball, American football and baseball are among the sports where attempts have been made to speed up the games in recent years.
More than anything, these steps are a response to decreasing attention spans. University of California professor Gloria Mark documented in 2004 that knowledge workers in the United States were changing tasks on their computers every 150 seconds. When she conducted the same study in 2012, this time was halved to 75 seconds. In 2022, this figure dropped to 47 seconds.
The focus on the pace of play also reflects the feeling that sports are more competitive with each other than ever before. Fans can now watch almost any sporting event from anywhere in the world. While sports once spanned discrete seasons, most games are now actually events lasting 12 months per year, as in cricket Appendix A.
Stopping clock is a response to the T20 paradox. The shortest of the three international formats is also the slowest: fewer overs are played per hour in T20 than in the other two formats. Sky Sports statistician Benedict Bermange calculates that since 2019, 20-overs of Test cricket have lasted an average of 87 minutes; It takes one minute more to repeat a one-day international match 20 times. However, 20 overs of a T20 take 97 minutes.
And so, a game that was designed to be completed in two hours and 45 minutes when created in 2003 now regularly stretches to four hours or more. This upsets fans, especially those with young families, and broadcasters.
Baseball, cricket’s transatlantic cousin, has long faced the same problems; There was concern that the gradual increase in the length of matches was delaying the new generation. In April, Major League Baseball introduced a stoppage clock that limits how long batters and pitchers can go between each pitch.
The results were striking. The average duration of a nine-inning game was shortened by 24 minutes, from three hours and four minutes to two hours and 40 minutes; this was the lowest figure since 1985. The changes were widely hailed, with some players complaining that the stopwatch was affecting their preparations.
“There were seconds to record, hundreds of times per game, at very little cost,” says Ben Lindbergh, journalist and co-author of The MVP Machine. “The key to the success of the franchise was its gradual rollout, starting with several seasons of testing and adjustments in the minor leagues; and clear, consistent, and universal enforcement once the new scheduler comes into effect. Many of the skeptics, including players, were won over as soon as they saw how lively baseball was on the clock.
Ahead of the first T20 in Barbados, Chris Woakes stated that the players are also open to changes in cricket. “It kind of makes sense; hopefully it will speed up the game a little bit,” he said. “We are in the entertainment business and we need to make sure the audience is happy too. That’s why I think it’s a good idea.”
Stoppage time goes much further than previous efforts to speed up the pace of play in international play. Sides that do not bowl all their innings in the required time are allowed to have only four fielders instead of five on the boundary side when completing the innings.
The stop watch will initially be trialled through April. But baseball’s experience suggests that while there may be initial frustration among players (and perhaps a brief spurt about teams trailing by five innings), players must soon settle into the new rhythm.
After all, the threat of dropping runs should increase the pace of the game, as occasions where teams are penalized are rare. But while stoppage time is welcome, he feels that the teams on the field are solely responsible for slowing down the game. Batsmen do this too, demanding new pairs of gloves and drinks; Unlike its baseball equivalent, the stopwatch doesn’t recognize this yet.
If the stoppage clock speeds up games by a few minutes without causing unforeseen consequences, it could become a permanent feature of T20 by the T20 World Cup in June. But if the trial is successful, it shouldn’t be limited to the T20 alone: seven overs a day were lost due to extreme odds during the Ashes.