Bowlers ‘go slow’

Press, 16 February 1980, Page 20

Bowlers ‘go slow’

Whatever the outcome of the controversies over. the penalties in Shell Series cricket for averaging below the required IS overs an hour, there will be many who welcome the air of purpose and urgency this rule has brought into the game. One of the strange features of this season’s situation is that there were nine instances of penalties being imposed, for a total of 12 points. Last summer, when the requirement was 13 eight-ball overs — only four balls fewer to the hour — there were only three matches in which teams suffered losses of points. Central Districts twice lost a point. Canterbury lost one once. No-one so far has explained how there has been such a decline, from one season to the next, in the bowling rates.

The business-like bustle in the field has not, however. been reflected in an upsurge of scoring. The runs scored, for every 100 balls bowled, was iractionallv better than it was last season — 38.19 compared with 37.88. The fastest scoring in Piunket Shield cricket was as long ago as 1923-24 when the average rate was 64.79 runs for every 100 deliveries. It declined steadily until the war years. Since the war. it has reached 40 only nine times. This season, the fastestscoring team was Otago, which averaged 42.5 runs off the bat for every 100 balls bowled to its batsmen. Northern Districts averaged 40.8, Canterbury 38.7. Wellington 37.5, Central Districts 37.2. Auckland had the lowest rate, 34.7, and also the slowest bowling rate.