What can be done to restore the balance between bat and ball in cricket ?

#1 Increase the size of boundaries

Eden Park is one of the smallest stadiums in the world

Until not so long back, we would watch on television and wonder how the batsmen in the middle would run five runs? Yes, it may sound hilarious to those who started watching in the late 2000s, but there were times in the past where we came across a lot of relay throws and enormously massive stadiums in Australia like the MCG were witness to such a phenomenon.

But, times have changed and so has the game too, in fact, a lot. Now, even before the blink of an eye, balls cross over the boundary line. Quite clearly, one of the primitive and biggest reasons behind the bat rather dominating the ball is the narrowing size of the grounds or shortening of boundaries.

These days, with many stadiums co-hosting a bunch of different sports at different times of the year, we came across scenarios in abundance where the boundaries are as short as 50 to 55 meters like the Eden Park in Auckland. Moreover, with many organizers believing in the idea that raining sixes and high scoring matches being better to promote and advertise the game, the boundary ropes are pulled inwards, thereby further making things tough for bowlers.

This has become becomes a dream situation for batsmen as big bats, fast outfields and extremely short boundaries lead to batsmen scoring plethora of runs without having to work hard for them.

As a result, with the growing popularity of T20s and the game spreading to various different shores, it is high time for the lawmakers to put some rules into effect pertaining to the size of the boundaries to restore balance.

Now, we stand on a crossroad and must decide on what do we expect from our beloved sport. Do we really care about the game and one of its essential commodities or do we wish to just brand the sport as entertainment package and allow the rift between the bat and the ball.