Saturday 1 February 2020

Solving the Super Over Situation

New Zealand have an issue with super overs. We play them much more than anyone else, and we're terrible at them.

We have played in 8 super overs in the past 12 years. We have lost 7 of them. There have only been 15 super overs in the history of international cricket. We play them ridiculously often, and we lose them ridiculously often.

Losing 7 out of 8 stops being bad luck, it start being something that needs to be dealt with.

Here's my solution: We play a single day domestic super over tournament on Waitangi Day every year.

We can either let association have a turn to host it, or pick one venue (possibly Whangarei for the proximity to Waitangi) to host it every year.

The day would work with every team playing a super over against every other team, (15 super overs) then semi-finals and a final.

It would take about 7 hours (shorter if there was quick hand overs between matches) - roughly the same as an ODI match, and could have a rugby 7's type festival feeling to it.

I can already hear the critics talking about shortening the game, and "what's next one ball matches" but this is an issue that needs to be addressed.

In most of those matches we should have won in regular time. We didn't generally get to a super over because we did well, and fought back. We almost invariably got into a super over because we were in a position to win the match, and did not manage to seal it.

Having our players playing those sort of pressure situations more often would tell us who is capable of handling that pressure. As such, we would want a variety of players involved. There should therefore be a rule that each bowler can only bowl in two matches, and each batsman can only be one of the three designated batsmen in three matches. That will mean that each team will have to use at least 3 bowlers and 6 batsmen. For the semi and final then they can pick whoever they want.

This seems to be the only option other than just hoping that we get better.

I'd rather do something, than nothing.

Over to you, New Zealand Cricket.