India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin (left)
India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin came up with a new concept that according to him, will stop batsmen from backing up at the non-striker's end. In a series of tweets, Ashwin explained how technology can play a big role in restoring parity as far as match-up between batsmen and bowlers is concerned.
Ashwin's tweet read: "Just hope that technology will see if a batsman is backing up before the bowler bowls a ball and disallow the runs of that ball every time the batter does so!! Thus, parity will be restored as far as the front line is concerned."
Ashwin then went onto explain how batsmen backing up at non-striker's end hampers the bowling team. He stated that batsmen can either use it to rotate strike quickly or convert ones into twos rather easily.
"Many of you will not be able to see the grave disparity here, so let me take some time out to clarify to the best of my abilities. If the non-striker backs up 2 feet and manages to come back for a 2, he will put the same batsmen on strike for the next ball," Ashwin wrote on his Twitter handle.
"Putting the same batsmen on strike might cost me a 4 or a 6 from the next ball and eventually cost me 7 more runs instead of may be a 1 and a dot ball possibility at a different batsman. The same will mean massively for a batter wanting to get off a strike even in a Test match," he wrote further.
Ashwin, in last year's Indian Premier League, had found himself in the eye of the storm after he Mankaded Jos Buttler during a match between Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals. Buttler was backing up at the non-striker's end and Ashwin removed the bails and it was given out by the officials.
Ashwin stated this concept could help in restoring some balance between bat and ball in modern-day cricket. Another Tweet read: "It is time to restore the balance in what is an increasingly tough environment for the bowlers.#thefrontcrease #belongs to #bothparties @bhogleharsha we can use the same tech that we are proposing for a no-ball check 120 balls in a T20 game."
