This is a by-product of the T20 revolution. It's hard to lose 10 wickets in 120 balls: let's slog to our heart's content. This has seeped through to 50-over matches.
Three out of four matches in the most recent New Zealand-West Indies series were tepid spectacles as a result. One six was hit every 32 balls and, if you happened to be at the hosts' innings in Queenstown, it was one every 5.73 deliveries.
No one can deny the impressive hitting. Most of it is clean and highlights the extraordinary hand-eye co-ordination, timing and power with which top batsmen are blessed.
That said, surely there is no harm in the bowler claiming back some cricketing weapons, rather than going into each contest delivering a five-and-a-half ounce white leather sphere on to a flat, brown surface. It's like the bowlers have signed a non-proliferation treaty while the batsmen are in an arms race, building their resources into an arsenal of tonks.
Suggested ways bowlers can claim back their dignity:
1. Narrower bats/smaller ball
We're not talking Bradman in front of the water tank with a stump and a golf ball, but how about reducing the bat width from the current 10.8cm? Nothing drastic, just something the plane in Grandad's shed might deliver. It might help bowlers feel less like they're running in to bowl to someone wielding a tree trunk. Alternatively, reduce the size of the ball so it's harder to hit.
2. Bigger grounds
Want to see a real six? Google Lance Cairns' one-handed pasting of Dennis Lillee at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in February 1983 over deep square leg when the MCG's biggest boundaries were around 120m. Push those ropes and hoardings back. This should reduce the need for lasers to measure sixes 10 rows deep on some grounds which are little more than grandiose back yards.
3. Remove fielding restrictions
Are these really helping much in shorter form cricket nowadays? If a bloke's going to hit it over the fence with his slab of timber, then it doesn't matter if you've got two, three or four players outside the circle in the power play overs. Allow more players to be pushed to the fence, open up the field and tempt some easy singles. Clearing the fence will still be an incentive for most.
4. Greener pitches
Remove the complacency from a limited overs batsman's mind when he heads off to work. At the moment, a bowler knows the ball's going to need panelbeating and a touch of paint after a handful of overs. That wouldn't be the case if it was allowed to move about a bit more off the seam early. We're not saying the pitch should be ready for grazing; there needs to be just enough grass to allow a bowler to teapot and puff out his chest when the batsman misses one every so often. Wide restrictions could also be loosened so batsmen have to go after the ball more. That could increase the chances of slip catches.
