Cricket:
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Remove the backfoot no ball. It does not benefit the sport but puts a lot of stress on bowlers bodies, knees in particular. The most commonly injured body part for bowlers. They land with 6x the impact of their bodyweight on one knee 6 times an over, like 20 overs a day. No good.
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So much I would change in Odis that i dont even have the energy to wrote it all.
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A shit ton of administrative changes.
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Mankads to no longer be stigmatised (they are legal already)
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Allow some level of ball tampering, by which I mean not using anything but allowing some controlled substances.
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Add substitutions
- Remove the backdoor no ball. It does not benefit the sport but puts a lot of stress on bowlers bodies, knees in particular. The most commonly injured body part for bowlers. They land with 6x the impact of their bodyweight on one knee 6 times an over, like 20 overs a day. No good.
I can get behind any rule that exists to protect the players. Sports are inherently physical but they shouldn’t endanger the athletes.
One of the reasons why I have a hard time getting behind boxing/certain martial arts as sports, it just feels like slightly more sanitized gladiatorial combat.
I think fighting sports have their place in society. We’ve had them forever across so many cultures that i can’t really dislike em.
We just enjoy violence I guess. Better it be controlled than not.
- Wait, how does the back foot no ball cause players stress? I thought that rule mostly impacts spin bowling, but it’s fast bowlers who are at greatest risk of knee injury.
- Come on. You can’t leave us hanging like that! At least name a few of the changes you’d suggest.
- See above
- Strongly agree. Batsmen are able to get an advantage by proceeding up the pitch early. Mankadding is required to even the playing field. Imagine in baseball if sneaking a base was allowed, but not pitchers getting you out for it!
- Strong disagree. There’s enough evolution of the ball over the course of a test as it is. We don’t need artificial substances any more than triathletes need to start allowing steroids.
- Strong disagree, with the exception that maybe they could make allowances for genuine injuries, if there’s a safeguard preventing abuse of that. Creating a good team composition with a balance of the right kinds of players for the match is a core part of cricket. Allowing substitutions to cricket would be like if rugby started doing the gridiron thing of swapping out defensive and offensive teams.
As far as format rules go: I’d ban anything shorter than ODI. T20 and the IPL in particular are ruining cricket, with too many young players learning that style and becoming worse cricketers unable to adapt to the truest form of the game. The way the media went on and on about Sam Konstas because of his showboaty shitty T20 play style. Never mind that Webster, who debuted in the same series as an all-rounder to Konstas’ specialist batsman averaged significantly more.
The only other rule that immediately comes to mind is one I’ve been told is being addressed. The ridiculous boundary catch rule. You shouldn’t be allowed to jump from outside the boundary to keep the ball alive. Spectacular jumps from inside the boundary, throwing it back over the rope from outside before landing, either to another player or to yourself if you’re able to get back in the field of play, are awesome. Hopping while continuously outside the field of play is not. Thankfully, I’ve heard they’re fixing this soon, if they haven’t already.
- MCC law for no balls.
21.5.1 the bowler’s back foot must land within and not touching the return crease appertaining to his/her stated mode of delivery.
21.5.2 the bowler’s front foot must land with some part of the foot, whether grounded or raised
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on the same side of the imaginary line joining the two middle stumps as the return crease described in 21.5.1, and -
behind the popping crease.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23098100/
Theres a lot of research on it. Even the intro to the first link should give you a basic overview if you’re not interested about going in depth.
Basically, bowlers try to maximize stride length without overstepping. This often leads to forcefully “planting” the front foot close to the popping crease.
Also try to land just behind the crease for maximum reach and pace which leads to overstriding, causing hyperextension of the knee. Pcl knee injuries follow.
When bowlers shorten their stride or change delivery angle to avoid overstepping they also risk injury.
- Well first of all I’d like to just scrap Odis, they no longer serve a purpose in the sport. T20s have replaced them. (I dont want to get into the history of it all in an already long reply)
But if they did stay. Field restrictions and powerplays are ridiculous. Ball changes are ridiculous.
We use two new balls in ODI cricket now, and that makes people angry. But we actually used two balls in 50 over cricket always. Because leather won’t dye white correctly as it does with red, the balls are lighter in colour for their natural state. But to make them bright white they have their colour sprayed on.
White balls start harder and swing more than red ones, and after five or so overs are softer and stop swinging. Then as they degrade quicker, they pick up dirt and grass as well. So they stop doing anything at all, you can’t see them, or hit them as far. They are simply not fit for purpose.
Before what would happen is that at one stage in an ODI, the umpires would look at the sad, grey piece of sponge and decide to replace it. Later on they just unofficially changed it around the 35/36 over mark with a ball that was used, but not abused.
So at the end of 2011, the ICC made a decision that still annoys many ODI fans. They abandoned the one new ball and one soiled ball strategy and went with two new balls. Which they had done before.
Now i believe they are changing it back.
I instead want the pink ball used in Odis. Also move Odis to 40 overs.
A. I just talked about balls so let me say they are the most important part of cricket alongside pitches. Maybe second. OK you want pitches to be influenced by local knowledge and culture. But why tf are balls not standardised. We have no clue what is going on with cricket balls.
In 2017 or so kookaburra reinforced their balls seam which made the ball seam more and for longer bringing down batting averages and completely changing the sport, the way people bowled and batted and swlcted players. Some players lost their careers due to it. Kookaburra just did it on their own, no questions no research no accountability.
The ICC need to have their own ball development and research company. We have the same antiquated balls for no reason. We can change the material and have a non leather ball! Why hasn’t SG and the BCCI focused on that?!?! We could change anything here and create smth that isn’t destroyed in 35 overs. Something that has better bounce. The sky is the limit.
B. Reform the stupid chaotic calendar with dedicated windows. Have distinct international windows each year, alongside divisional structures for all three formats. Have relegation systems. Scheduling windows for ‘Core International Cricket’ – which should be implemented to cover one match per format against all other teams within consistent divisional championships.
C. Have a pathway to test status. Noone knows what they gotta do to get status.
D. Revenue sharing model needs to be changed. A centralised Global Growth and Development Fund – to be established, underpinned by pooled rights model applicable only to Core International Cricket, to fund Core International Cricket and other global initiatives ICC revenue distribution – occurring within minimum and maximum parameters Stronger regulation and accountability – on how distributed money is spent in all countries Player revenue sharing parameters – to be applied in all sanctioned cricket.
70% of the game’s revenues are generated across just three months of the year, that 83% of all revenue is shared by three countries, and that revenues generated by bilateral cricket outside the big three constitutes less than 4%. Total player payments across cricket, it says, represent approximately 10% of all cricket revenue.
WCA projects a more optimal calendar (with windows and greater context) could result in an additional USD 246 million revenue for the game annually. It calls for the establishment of minimum and maximum distribution parameters of ICC revenues, giving as an example, “a minimum 2% and maximum 10% for the top 24 countries, and a minimum 10% distribution collectively for countries 25+.” That would see the BCCI’s share being cut from 38.5% in the current model to 10%.
Players, it says, should also receive a minimum percentage of revenue generated in all sanctioned cricket, across internationals, T20 leagues and ICC events. Another recommendation is the creation of a global growth and development fund, which would go towards sustaining the base level of Core International Cricket for the top 24+ countries. This fund would be built from a percentage of ICC events revenue, T20 leagues and pooled media rights from Core International Cricket - a concept that has been aired before at the ICC but always dismissed.
The issue is the bcci.
E. Archives and access to games. Have an ICC channel where people can subscribe and watch all games from the past. Live stream current games in countries where rights are undervalued or unsold atleast. And access to ICC events. The ICC allows no cricket to be shown and hinders growth. I lobe the way American sports allow you to watch the game atleast. Look at what they did to poor robelinda.
F. Eliminate stupid NOC requirements. Players shouldn’t have to need permission from the board to do their job, especially players who aren’t even centrally contracted.
G. Global cricket needs to come together with clear leadership to reflect the sport’s changing landscape and prevent fragmentation. The way the shady ass sport is run is terrible.
H. Figure out the league stuff. Player non payments, spot fixing etc. A lot happens beyond the test nations leagues. So not as worried bout the cpl or IPL but a random game in Singapore or Canada is sus.
I. Do smth about sports betting. Also a governments issue so I don’t even know where to begin. Atleast work with betting companies to get some insight.
J. Have people be responsible for things. Noone has direct power over anything and noone takes responsibility over anything.
No one is actually in charge of the sport as a genuine custodian of the global game as a whole. Regional interests dominate and lead to short-term decisions. There is no independent leadership. The game is run by the most powerful boards, without any representation from leagues, franchises, players or women.
I say trash the ICC and create smth from scratch. Practically impossible ofc.
My reply wouldn’t post in one go. Jesus I speak too much.
Here’s the continuation.
Thing is each of these I could write 6000 words on. All of this requires a lot of talking and has a lot of stakeholders and powers affecting it, cricket is a mess. I genuinely think Saudi coming in is gonna help the sport lol. https://youtu.be/CU77TgMksSU Link to my favourite sports journalist. Incredible writer and researched, really understands admin and the sport. Amazing yt channel.
Ive used the wca report in this point too at places, like the revenue share point. Also scheduling.
- Players use sweat rn, saliva has been reintroduced too. I know of players having used the horse nail strengthener on their nails to affect the ball. Reports and stories of people doing all sorts of things to affect the ball, sandpaper gate too ofc.
Now all of these have issues, especially health and hygiene. Saliva can cause diseases to spread. If we allow some sort of solution that replaces sweat (a major issue was that collecting sweat was annoying, with saliva you always instantly have enough). If you give the umpire a bottle of a sweat mimicking substance, saline solution or smth, that the bowlers can use to shine the ball it eliminates the issue.
- There is no reason cricket doesn’t have subs. Other sports started having them and we were left behind and over time just decided to call it tradition.
If both teams have 15 players you need a balanced composition of 15 players. You’ll see this issue come up every WC when all fans are arguing about wanting one extra spinner or pacer or whatever else. When both teams have the same number of players you’ll always need to find the balance.
Do we go in with 7 bowlers and 8 batters? Can we afford a specialist keeper? A specialist fielder? It only adds to the game, doesn’t take away anything. One more strategic element.
This is also very important for injury prevention. Say Lyon gets injured first innings and the aussie pace trio has to bowl out his over too! Can you imagine the physical toll that would take over 5 days!
And don’t suggest injury subs they dont work. Players, bowlers in particular are always somewhat injured.
- Move cricket to 2 overs from each end before and change. This is smth I forgot to say in the original comment. Half as many ads and reduce time waste of changing ends and fields so often.
No offense but I hate the t20 is ruining cricket idea. No it isn’t. It is cricket. I also dislike the soul of cricket idea. and yes i exclusively watch test cricket myself, plus world cups. OK the occasional t20 too, but barely.
As for Sam Konstas, ofc the media would do that! Hes the first teen to play for aus in forever, they dont play players so young. He’s opening! The toughest batting position by far. In a country with no openers.
Beau is at 6-7 the easiest batting position, facing the easiest bowlers at the easiest times. Hes 31 or so and aus have 5 other similar players. Hes a goo d plug and play option pur nothing special.
Konstas took on bumrah, the greatest ever 3 format bowler and the best test bowler atm. With the new ball! On debut! At 19! In AUS!
Alone maybe none of those things would be insane, together they are. Plus he rattled the Indian team, kohli etc fighting a kid was pathetic.
I don’t think the jumps are a big deal, they are a fun lil thing, if they change it I don’t mind, if they dont I don’t care. It’ll successfully happen once in like 200 games and be a very cool moment.
- From what I can see, that first link is addressing the front foot. But your original comment, and what I was confused about, is why the back foot placement needing to be inside the return crease is an issue.
Well first of all I’d like to just scrap Odis, they no longer serve a purpose in the sport. T20s have replaced them.
Ha. Interesting. Personally, I mostly only care for tests anyway. The ODI World Cup is far superior to the T20 World Cup though. I’d keep ODIs around for that reason if no other.
I actually wouldn’t mind banning T20i entirely. If T20 has to exist, let it stay domestic.
Your stuff about scheduling and pathways reminded me of something. ICC already has rules for full membership and test-playing status. One of those rules is that a country must have a women’s team to qualify. They need to enforce this rule. It’s ridiculous that the Taliban gets to sports-wash via the ICC just because the government they overthrew was making genuine progress.
Agree strongly that BCCI’s influence over the ICC is detrimental to the game, and your ideas around revenue sharing and other management stuff are good ones.
Eliminate stupid NOC requirements
As long as it is never allowed for players to choose to play a T20 rather than a test match.
- Bowlers with wide “open” actions naturally plant their back foot outside the return crease to maintain alignment. Forcing them inward (to stay within the return crease) alters hip and shoulder alignment.
Bowlers may adjust their run-up angle or foot landing to stay legal which is bad for em too.
Banning t20i is impossible and ridiculous! I know many dont like it, me included, bilaterals in particular. But its unnecessary, impossible and brings barely any benefit
YES. IVE BEEN HARPING ABOUT REMOVING AFGHANISTANS TEST STATUS FOREVER!
Players should absolutely have the right to play what they want! Unless they are centrally contracted. In which case, do your job
Is it possible to have such an action as a fast bowler? I associate the wider action with spin, which, as previously mentioned, tends not to be associated with injuries.
Banning betting itself is likely impossible, but a good start would be to ban teams or grounds from being sponsored by betting companies, and ban players from being involved with betting companies’ advertising campaigns.
Banning is certainly possible. Just that it would make no differance. Never has banning something stopped it. It would just hide it.
If betting is allowed, you can see trends in the market to find smth sus to find fixing. If if isn’t, what happens behind the scenes is anyone’s guess. We do it want anymore fixing controversies in cricket. No other sport is as susceptible or as commonly accused of being fixed by the fans themselves as cricket is.
I mean there was a fake league made with actors as players for illegal betting purposes in India! The league was in Indonesia or somewhere (bit actually was in India too). Players were given scripts ball by ball. Cricket is insane.
Also even if you ban em, they will come up as smth else. As a sports app or smth, same company but acting like they aren’t a betting company.
So say cricinfo sponsors a team saying we just show news and scores but there heavily advertises their betting app. (This is an example, not literally true) although other companies have done so.
The athletic have gone in depth about this, would suggest checking it out.
Or again, Jarrod Kimber.
I agree its nearly impossible. But even I’d it were done it would survive.
Yeah I don’t really want to ban gambling itself. It’s completely impractical, but even if you could do it successfully, I don’t want to police people’s vices. What I have a problem with is how normalised it is and how much it has become a part of the culture of sport. Children should not be exposed to the idea that gambling is completely normal just because they want to watch their favourite pros playing their favourite game.
The history of sport and gambling is heavily intertwined. I don’t like gambling either but I really have no clue what to do about it.
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College football: when you win the coin toss, you have 2 choices: kick or receive. No more deferrals.
All sports have an alternative league where performance enhancing drugs are mandatory to participate. That’s way more fun.
I wouldn’t go with “mandatory” but no doping tests would be quite something!
Backcourt violation in Football (also known as Soccer).
Something I’d like to see on every hard cap league is a cap relief calculation for team drafted players, going up the later that player was drafted. Maybe 5% per found, maybe 7.5%?
So many times teams are basically forced to move on from role players that are fan favorites because it’s literally impossible to pay a team of veterans under the cap unless you have no star players and I think it would be genuinely interesting to provide a benefit on the cap side to keeping drafted players in house past their first or second deals. Part of why it’s so hard to be a fan is knowing that anyone but the absolute TOP stars are just consistently going to be moving on in a few seasons.
At the same time that would just make luck the deciding factor. Noone knows if a draftee will be good. So whoever gets lucky and drafts that good player or two gets to ride that wave as long as they can play.
Baseball: There is now a gun under second base.
For any pro sport known for rowdy, destructive fans - the clubs get to pay for the police and insurance expenses.
Oh, this would bankrupt the clubs, I hear you say? Oh no. Anyway…!
Baseball: Strictly timed innings. Take the average time of innings in the last season or two, set that as the time. Inning ends when the time ends. I don’t care if it’s mid-play, I don’t care if the ball’s in the air. And no extra innings. Tie game at the end of the 9th inning counts as a mutual loss.
Warhammer 40K: If it’s on the table, play it. I don’t care if it’s a Battletech model, or a can of coke. It’s a model, it gets a move, shoot, and melee.
I think Warhammer could be improved with the addition of a cat. You either get a large piece of on unnavigable terrain, or a natural disaster that wreaks havoc… Possibly both in various degrees.
Better yet - each army’s player may nominate or provide not more than one cat, to be placed on the board according to Deep Strike rules.
Wouldn’t your rule incentivise slower play from the fielding team? I don’t follow baseball, but I imagine the longer an innings goes (in terms of number of plays), the more points the batting team can score. If you can artificially reduce the number of plays because there’s a time limit and you just slow-play it, you gain an advantage.
Cricket addresses its timing issues through a few means, but one is finding the bowling team if over rates drop too low. This has its own problems (the assumption behind that rule is that low over rates are the fault of the bowling team, but this is not always true, especially with batsmen who have weird habits like regularly changing gloves, and with the use of player reviews), and I think it’s better addressed at more fundamental levels, but I think it probably looks at it from a better place. Identify the culprit and do something that penalises them, rather than their opponent.
Oh, the time might cause slower fielding play, but combined with the “ties are a mutual loss”, you’d have an ongoing scramble to get one over. It makes the whole game more defensive under the time limit.
Baseball: Strictly timed innings.
The Savanna Bananas added a game timer, and it is great.
Fencing: Allow shields.
HEMA: I’m right here!
True, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a HEMA tournament that allowed non-buckler shields.
We study rodella as one of the offhands at my school, but if you’re competitively-minded you’re not going to get much chance to actually use it.
Yellow card for faking an injury in soocer
Badminton:
- screaming and shouting and other obviously bad manners meant to psychologically disturb the opponent. Looking at you, Carolina Marín. God I hate her.
- Taking unnecessarily long to serve the shuttle, swaying left and right for a long time before serving. Looking at you, Viktor Axelsen! For shame! 🫵
1 is such a huge problem with tennis, too. Absolutely ban the obnoxious grunts and yells.
It has no place in sports. So unsportsmanlike.
Other than maria sharapova, let her do what she’s doing
As someone who is forced to watch baseball by their fanatical wife: the MLB should adopt most of the rules that the Savannah Bananas use, including a fan catching a foul ball counts as an out, trick plays, inning timer, etc.
Also stilts.
Basketball: sooo boring but if you made it like street hoops…
Just bringing back the 90’s rules would make the game a lot better since it would bring back better defense.
American football:
Universal:
- No TV timeouts. The game is already insanely stop-start. Get your shit together, TV broadcasters, and make it work as-is.
- No “wounded duck” pass interference penalties on poorly thrown balls. Defenders in pass coverage should be entitled to their existing vector of motion.
- Players leaving for injury must be out for 4 plays or more, maybe the length of the existing drive. Something though. One play is not sufficient to dissuade simulation for tactical advantage.
Stuff to try in college or the spring league:
- No radio communication. American football can be too regimented sometimes, and old men treating young men like chess pieces is part of that.
- Limited substitutions per play if there is no is no change in phase. You come out, fine, but you’re not going back in until the next time your team is on offense/defense/special teams. This will also enhance numbers 1 and 3.
- Even shorter play clock. Keep it moving. Adjust when the clock runs if you want to keep the number of snaps consistent.
- Remove kicking entirely. They’re vestigial minigames at this point that could be replaced with throwing the ball. Workshop it in the offseason to see how small the goalposts need to be to replicate current play balance.
- College only: Admit they’re professionals, make them employees with enforceable (and purchasable) contracts, and route enough money into the non-revenue sports to keep them viable. It is what it is; don’t let the creeping in of sensible labor practices destroy the sport. Use the inevitable anti-trust exemption you’ll get to mandate some sort of nexus between the players and the schools (lifetime tuition waiver? part-time enrollment?), but stop acting like the already snobbish and laughable “amateurism” of the NCAA is even a viable concept.
Stuff to bring in that would make the game weird to modern eyes but might help reduce head injuries:
- Mandate wide splits on the lines, two-point stances, and a wider neutral zone so that players are not exploding into each other head-to-head. A snap should look like a sumo match, not two horny rams on a hillside.
- To allow for number 1, make “1 yard to go” the minimum for a given offensive snap.
- Remove most/all of kicking again, though with the idea of reducing high combined-velocity impacts rather than just because it’s anachronistic. Treat an incomplete pass on fourth down like it was a punt. Give up on the idea of kickoff returns. Field goals could stay, but subject to the same scrimmage rules as other plays.
- Consider whether every play from scrimmage should require the Offensive Line’s first step should be backwards or lateral. They already are on many passing plays, but making it mandatory would further encourage upright play that’s often ineffective technique today. The running game will be severely affected, but it is what it is and “every run play looks like a draw play” is a small price if we want to save American football over the long term.
- Revamp tackling rules. Make it rugby style and penalize hits above the shoulder harshly. Consider whether big hits resulting in heads thumping against turf are common enough to be banned altogether.
- Consider removing helmets so players have a sense of preservation over their own heads, but if not that, then go with something much lighter and more ice-hockey style so the helmet is not as tempting as a weapon and doesn’t encourage a false sense of invulnerability. It was for all the wrong reasons, but the “Extreme Football League” (nee “Lingerie Football League”) uses this type of headgear.
In basketball, you must always have two limbs touching the ground when you have the ball, unless you are standing, shooting, or jumping. Why? I don’t like basketball and think it would be funny as he’ll.
