Another reason put forward is that with the onset of winter, the sun sets early and the twilight zone lingers for a while. That kind of light is brilliant for television cameramen giving you lovely images but not quite so for the fielders trying to sight a ball. Remember too that many grounds in South Africa are quite open, not tall concrete structures that block everything, and so the effect of the setting sun may get accentuated. I’d like to believe that is a factor but I would also like to believe that the huge coaching contingents that teams carry around these days would have evolved a solution by now. Unless of course it is, as multiple choice question papers often offer you as an option, ‘none of the above’ and that fielders are just not concentrating enough. Whatever the reason, it is not a great spectacle and you cannot have players at this level, being paid what they are, to falter in a crucial, but fundamental, aspect of cricket.

Having said that I was hoping to see something new at the IPL and I now have. Last year Shaun Pollock introduced the loopy bouncer to T20 cricket. Hitherto, slower balls were fuller and only the likes of Venkatesh Prasad used to bowl it mid-pitch. Now Pollock was almost bowling a fast off break about halfway through and getting it to rise like a normal bouncer but only much slower. This year we have seen a thrilling variation on the old scoop shot played over fine leg. Most often that was played at about forty-five degrees or occasionally finer, maybe thirty degrees. Now twice in two days we have seen it played back over the wicketkeeper’s head (“back over the bowler’s head” used to be a favourite commentary line in the days gone by!!). It means of course that you move your own head out of line first and stop short of hitting the wicketkeeper on the helmet if he is standing up. Even more astonishingly, both Brendon McCullum and Tillakaratne Dilshan, managed to clear the boundary with it. It is thrilling to watch and just shows you how this game evolves with time, and with changing requirements.

... contd.