What are the ‘more boundaries’ rule in other sports? Arunabha Sengupta ponders
The greatest ODI ever?
Perhaps. With the gushing and frothing cocktail of emotions erupting like the uncorking of a giant champagne bottle on an unprecedented sporting Sunday, it is natural to conclude thus.
After all, a grippingly attritional final, so much better than a 700-run one, ending in a tie, not once but twice. And add to it the extraordinary display by the two superhuman legends in the grassy Centre Court just about 12 miles away. Two epics in the two hallowed sporting arenas most of us have grown up drooling on.
Well, one is bound to get emotional. And then there is the bit of outdoing each other’s reactions on social media.
But, then, when reality sinks in after the wildfire reactions, can we really consider a match finishing with a rather ridiculous verdict, due to one of the most ridiculous rules ever, as the greatest ODI ever?
True, both the teams, along with every other side in the tournament, signed up for it, and hence we cannot complain about the choice of the champions. However, it was a case of not reading the fine print because it seemed too unlikely … a black swan event if there ever was one.
Yet, if one had been convinced that the moment of witnessing Dave Richardson and Brian Macmillan walk out to somehow conjure up 21 runs off 1 ball in 1992 would remain the stupidest moment of World Cup history will have to recalibrate their perceptions.
Hitting boundaries seem to matter more… somehow that was the criterion chosen over sixes, singles, dot balls, wickets, hitting the stumps, leg before decisions, wides, no balls, tapping the pitch, twelfth man running in with water bottles,the number of slip fielders employed, length of bitten nails of respective coaches, the number of balls played to cow corner and all other possible parameters that could have been considered.
Let us turn to the Federer-Djokovic match to reflect what that means in tennis terms.
Suppose the two had stood at 7-6, 1-6, 7-6, 4-6, 12-12 - as they indeed had done… And then without playing this tie-breaker, Federer had been awarded the trophy because of winning 51 net points to Djokovic’s 24.
After all net play is perhaps perceived more aggressive than ground strokes from the baseline. Just like boundaries supposedly champion aggression rather than singles and twos.
Let us now turn to see how we can use similar rules in other sports. (Scenarios are fictitious, but perhaps less improbable than what took place at Lord’s yesterday)
Football: Brazil and Germany tied 2-2 in the match, 4-4 in the tiebreaker. Germany declared winners because of 12 shots at the goal from outside the penalty box to Brazil’s 7.
Chess: Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana draw all the 12 games in the title round and are locked 2-2 in the tie-break rapid games. Caruana is declared winner because of 144 moves with the Queen to Carlsen’s 123.
Hockey: Belgium and Netherlands draw 0-0 after full time and are locked 2-2 in the tie break. Netherlands win due to 5 penalty corners to Belgium’s 3.
100 metres sprint: Justin Gatlin and Christian Coleman end in a photo-finish. Coleman wins because of greater number of sub 0.9 second 10 metre splits.
Basketball : United States tie 99-99 with Serbia. The Serbians win because of 15 three-pointers to 12. Or the USA pull it off because of 20 swish points to 11, you know where the ball goes through without hitting the backboard or rim.
Ridiculous? Well, you decide.
Through this exercise I have just realised is that it is phenomenally difficult to come up with rules of equivalent asinine quotient. Kudos to the men behind this brainwave.