India yesterday played a supermax cricket match yesteray in NZL.Looks like its a shorter version of BAseball and a bolwers nightmare.
Innntresringggggggggg…
Any comments.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?artid=30265404
NEW DELHI: If you thought nothing could get more bizarre then one-day cricket, take a shot at the Super Max, the nearest that cricket can get to baseball!
India played their tour opener at Christchurch in this modified game of cricket on Wednesday. Both teams played two innings of 10 overs each.
India lost the match by 21 runs in a space of 40 overs with 461 runs being made by the two teams. In a game already dominated by the batsmen, Super Max is a bowler’s graveyard.
Boundaries are worth eight and 12 runs if hit in the Max Zone - the area deep in front of a batsman where no fielder is allowed as the ball is being delivered though a catch inside the marked area is legal.
The idea of course is to make the batsmen hit straight to get maximum benefit while the hapless bowler might bowl a perfectly legitimate delivery and see it unceremoniously dispatched over the fence.
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Check out some of the playing conditions for this slam-bang affair:
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A team consists of 11 players plus a twelfth man. This additional 12th player is a specialist fielder, who can be used for interchange in the field at any time.
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If a no ball is bowled the batsman is not out and for some strange reason neither can he be dismissed off the next ball.
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If a wide is bowled the next ball after is still a free hit. If a wide is bowled, 2 runs are scored and the ball must be bowled again.
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The ball must pass the batsman inside the wide zone, which is indicated by 2 lines at each end painted between the popping and bowling crease. The dotted line is for the leg-side, the solid line is for the offside. There are lines for both left and right handed batsmen.
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If the ball is hit into the Max Zone, the runs are doubled. So if the batsman takes a single he actually scores two. If the ball is hit along the ground through the Max Zone boundary for 4 the batsman will actually score 8. If hit over the Max Zone the batsman will score 12 runs.
If that was not enough to send the bowlers tearing their hair in despair, consider the fielding restrictions: In the first 5 overs of each innings only 2 fielders are allowed outside the circle while, in the last 5 overs of each innings only 4 fielders are allowed outside the circle.
No fielder is allowed in the Max Zone when the ball is being delivered. If you are wondering who is behind this bold initiative, it is none other than former New Zealand player Martin Crowe.
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Super Max is already part of the New Zealand’s domestic circuit and one can only hope that it remains there or at best is seen as pure Carnival Cricket.
One-day cricket has seen some innovations in the past with formats like the Single Wicket competition in which one player takes on another with the same set of fielders.
Then there is the Double Wicket format in which each team consists of a pair who have to bowl and bat. More recent versions are the ‘Sixes’ format played in Hong Kong and the ‘Eights’ played in Malaysia.
