Ep 21: Tie-Breakers, Cricket vs Tennis

Does cricket need tie-breakers at all? Isn't tie a genuine result in the game of cricket? What can Tennis and Football tell cricket about tie-breakers? Join Aaron Kumar with host Prakash Wadhwa in this final part of a 3 part conversation on #CWC19 side stories including discussion on dead-ball rule, the role of MCC in the game, #KumarDharmasena part of MCC, & #SpiritOfCricket. 

Transcript

Prakash Wadhwa 0:03

Hello and welcome to gully boys of cricket. I am your host Prakash Wadhwa. This is a continuation of our previous episode on important and developing side stories on 2019 Cricket World Cup final. Let's continue our conversation with Aaron Kumar from England.

Aaron Kumar 0:20

one other thing Prakash, you talked earlier about super overs kind of continuing and to me, I just don't understand why if they were going to go down the route of having super overs in the first place why that wasn't there? Because to me, you know, we talk about tennis, you know, or football, tennis we have a tie break, you know, funnily enough there was that epic collaborate going on between Federer and Djokovic in the fifth set, at the same time as that World Cup final but it's first to seven in a tie break by two clear but if it's seven all, they'll keep going and they could keep in theory they could keep going till someone when they're not just going to stop you know, seven all and say, Okay, well Federer hit more aces therefore he wins. You know, you're going to keep going. Football if it's a penalty shootout, you know, first to five or first to seven, you're not just going to stop at five all and say, well, Manchester United had more possession during the match. You're going to keep going in the penalty shootout. If a penalty shoot out is a bit longer than it usually would be. So be it, so I really for the life of me can't understand why that wasn't in place. A super over is a tie, you keep going because realistically, you're not gonna keep tieing super overs, are you? There's gonna be a point where one of the someone's gonna someone's gonna win. So that's something I can't really understand either.

Prakash Wadhwa 1:35

You touched on a great point there. Since you're a tennis fan, a huge tennis fan. Let's compare tennis and cricket for a bit here. Because tennis has this, historically, this concept of tiebreakers. In cricket tie is a genuine result. I want to bring out some numbers, this was an article from ESPN Cricinfo, nearly 4200 ODIs, only 38 have been ties, which is less than 1% of ODIS. Only two Test matches in the history of cricket have been ties out of 2400 Test matches, two out of 2400. In T20 internationals out of 1100 games only 19 have been ties. So just a small number and T20s is the one which started using tiebreakers with super overs. Yeah, so you tell me is comparing cricket and tennis isn't cricket good with tie as a result?

Aaron Kumar 2:32

I completely agree with you and that's what Ross Taylor said. He said the moment it was a tie he shook umpire's hand, that itself is laughable isn't it? One of the one of the players from New Zealand was not informed to what the rules were. He thought it was going to be a so I completely agree with you. What I was saying was having had a super over I just think it's laughable that there was no plans in place should the super over you know, in any other sport if there is a tie break, the tie break keeps going on till you have a clear winner, you know, you don't just talk so I think There is a very legitimate result. But I don't think a tie in a tiebreaker is an acceptable result. If that makes sense. I think if you have a tiebreaker, then you have to play with it, 

Prakash Wadhwa 3:08

I get it. And in tennis, there is no such thing as tie as I understand. It's always you don't have a drawn match, you get one winner. But I completely agree with you. If you have a tiebreaker, it should not end with a tie. 

Aaron Kumar 3:21

I mean, the closest thing I'd say in tennis, brackish or not, so bringing my tennis into this, but what we used to have at Wimbledon, let's say in the final set, you wouldn't have a tie break in the final set. And you used to get these really long matches potentially. So on grass, it's quite hard to break serve. So you might have a 20 all in a fifth set and they could go on and on and then a lot of people like that because they say that it's about fitness. It's about outlasting someone mentally and physically the better tennis player will win. It became a problem because the scheduling and stuff I think they had a really long match. 2018 I believe Isna Anderson. It went on for six years. And it really messed up the whole scheduling. So that's why they've brought in a fifth set tiebreaker. So they kind of have some control over the thing. So it's kind of like the same reason why I guess cricket, they want to have a winner, tennis, they want to have some control over their schedules. Like, that's a debate in tennis, because that match went on for three and a half day. That's quite a famous match at Wimbledon 10 years ago. And people always talk about that match and say, that's the reason why we can't keep playing long sets. But how often does that really happen? I mean, that's a one two, that's not gonna happen. It won't happen now. But the chances that has I think you're right, people do tend to focus on something even in cricket going back to that happen so rarely, but they kind of is the recency bias and people just worry it's going to happen when they haven't realistically been that many ties and I've got no issue with the tied match because as you said before, if it had been rain, they would have shared the trophy. So to me, I would argue that more injust way to share the trophy than actually playing the match. Going through the heart, you know, the heart, you know, the, the pain, the rigor of playing a match Having the same school, you could argue is much more legitimate way to share the trophy than having a rained out game. In my mind anyway,

Prakash Wadhwa 5:09

That's well said well summarized there Aaron, we hope that some of these discussions filter down to people who have to make such decisions. All the components need to be put on the table and see how unfairly everything was just allowed to happen. But we can always go back, put the pieces in the right places and still come up with a fair decision, which helps the game move forward. So thank you very much, Aaron, again, for taking out time. And I hope everyone who's watching this or listening to this, stay safe, stays healthy. Thank you very much, everyone for listening to gully boys of cricket. We'll see you next time.