Bipin Dani
India’s KL Rahul’s radical suggestion of awarding more runs to the long sixes has “not been an appropriate one”, according to the two six ball six hitters.
“If someone hits a six over 100 metres, it should be given more runs,” Rahul said to the Team India and Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli during an Instagram Live chat.
“Tomorrow another batsman will demand more runs for a big 4-run boundary and you will agree to that ? You can’t have that”, Sir Garry Sobers, who became the first man in First Class cricket to strike six sixes in an over, said over telephone from Barbados.
“(To have more runs for a bigger six) We need to build bigger grounds, use different bats and wickets. Whole scenario will change then”.
“Now the game has changed. It is different from games of our era. And if this made a change the entire scoring pattern will change”, Sobers added.
South Africa’s Herschelle Gibbs, who smashed the 6 sixes in an over, becoming the first to do so in ODI cricket, says, “A 6 is a 6, makes no difference how far it goes”.
“They must make boundaries a standard size of 75 meters and that gives bowlers a better chance and the mishits won’t go for 6 and will be caught. That’s more beneficial for the T20 format”.
“Make the boundaries 75m long and you’ll see a big difference. Boundaries are too short.. the average length of a 6 I think is around 72-75m long so make that standard size for boundaries and the mishits will be caught.. it’s wrong that mishits go for 6s”.
“That is the one change they need to make for it to be more fair on bowlers and batsmen”, he signed off.
