Cricket is going through a Ship of Theseus phase

Theseus is the mythical founder of Athens. He was a naval hero, and Athenians put up a memorial to him by preserving his ship in the port.

With time, however, the ‘Ship of Theseus’ had to have its parts replaced. If you replaced one of the planks, was it still the same Ship of Theseus? What about two planks, what about all the planks? If the change was gradual was that still the Ship of Theseus? The ‘Theseus paradox’ was discussed by Plutarch nearly two millennia ago, and remains a background to identity in philosophical debates.

Cricket is going through a Ship of Theseus phase. How far can we go, reducing and replacing its essential parts before it ceases to be “cricket” as we have known it?

The idea of a fourth format — it is still only an idea, but one which the England and Wales Cricket Board is pushing — is like another fresh plank on an old ship. The ECB’s city-based tournament for the year 2020 (Ah the irony!) will not be a T20 as originally planned, but something called ‘The 100’. Teams will play a maximum of 100 balls each, thus saving time, and ensuring that new fans learn to count backwards, since the scoreboard counts down from 100.

England have been great innovators. In 1963, they introduced a limited-overs tournament. Eight years later came the first one-day international. In 2003, they invented T20; two years later the first international was played.

There were skeptics each time. The one-day version was soon dubbed “pyjama cricket”; T20 was “cricketainment”. India were among the disbelievers and doubters, but success washed away all misgivings. World Cup triumphs (50-over in 1983, and T20 in 2007) swung the reaction, official and public, from indifference to obsession quite dramatically.

The 100 is for a young and “casual” audience, says the ECB, suggesting that T20 audiences are a bunch of fuddy-duddies, many of them nearly 18 years old, by god! The two-and-a-half hour duration of the matches is a thoughtful contribution to getting children in bed early, since matches will be shown live on terrestrial TV, and finish just an hour past Wee Willie Winkie time.

But — to get back to the question we started with — how long before the constant changes strip away the essential “cricketness” and make it something else? The essence of the game — 22-yard pitches, overarm bowling, three stumps at either end, the various laws — evolved over time.

Evolution is one thing, revolution quite another. Television executives, usually middle aged men and women, believe they know what the youth wants. And that seems to be shorter games, fewer laws, bigger hits. Simplicity, however, is no recommendation for a game that prides itself on its complexity, its ebbs and flows, its irrationality.

Such is the nature of the game that efforts to simplify it artificially make it more complicated. Thanks to the spread of the T20 leagues and the pressures to adapt, that format has thrown up unexpected alternatives, technical as well as statistical. From a puerile hit-and-giggle game at the start, it has been forced to introduce degrees of difficulty to remain interesting.

It is not difficult to imagine T100 (let’s call it that for convenience, although B100 might be more accurate but that does remind you of a vitamin tablet) evolving similarly. Fifteen six-ball overs and one giant 10-ball over or sixteen six-ball overs and one tiny four-ball over are clearly gimmicks, as is a possible 20 five-ball overs. But over the years, there have been four, five, six or eight balls in an over, so this is not really startling.

Some years ago, Cricket Max, the brainchild of the late Martin Crowe, was briefly popular. Each side played two innings of 10 overs each, there were four stumps at either end, no leg before, and ‘Max zones’ in the field where you doubled the runs scored.

At what point in their search for dollar-driven novelty will the authorities realise that dumbing down the game distorts it? T20 was distortion enough. The implied criticism that it is too complicated (because of those extra 20 deliveries?), and we need a new version for those born after the Queen turned 90, is staggering. As is the ECB’s enthusiasm in rushing to fix something that ain’t broke.

T100 might not happen if the counties object to it strongly enough. Maybe this is the ECB’s way of whipping up support for T20, the older, established version of the game!

Already W.G. Grace is unlikely to recognise today’s cricket as the one he played. In another decade, Sachin Tendulkar might no longer recognise the game as his. The Ship of Theseus deserves respect for what it has been, not for what it could be after unnecessary tinkering.

On second thoughts, why go through all these complications? We could reduce our majestic five-day game to a one-over (ten balls?) shoot-out, or if everybody agrees, limit it to just the toss. The commentator’s cliché: Win the toss, win the match, will then be literally true.