No point complaining, says Ashwin on powerplay rules

When the ICC made its annual changes to the rules of the game in 2012, one of those introduced was reducing the maximum number of fielders allowed outside the 30-yard circle.

For a long time, teams could push up to five fielders outside the circle once the Powerplay overs were done; the sport's governing body decided to lower that figure to four.

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The rationale behind the decision was not too far off the mark.

Teams had become too formulaic between overs 11 and 40; barring the Powerplay overs in which they could take a lot more risks - as they looked to milk the bowlers away for a few singles every over and time and again -- the same script kept getting repeated for all games.

With an exponential rise in the number of ODIs played in this day and age, that script was getting stale and interest in the game getting reduced as a result.

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What was probably not envisaged was the carnage that followed. That extra fielder inside the circle has virtually killed the spinner as we knew him; the part-timer has mostly gone out of the window and, more pertinently, has made low-scoring thrillers a redundant commodity.

Unless the pitch offers enough lateral movement for the quicker bowlers, or there's extra, steep bounce, batting has almost become child's play as compared to previous years.

In fact, so ingrained has batting become in these very easy conditions that even if a pitch makes for a slight allowance for the bowlers, the batsmen are found scurrying for cover.

The latest case in point was the game between New Zealand and Australia in Auckland, where there wasn't much by the way of help for the quicker men. The two who managed to get late swing, Trent Boult and Mitchell Starc, went home with 11 wickets to their name while a 150-ish score almost became a defendable one.

Unfortunately for the bowlers, this is a rarity than a norm.

Even on the traditionally fast and bouncy WACA pitch, the hapless Afghan bowlers went for more than 400 against Australia on Wednesday. While that was to do with poor bowling as well, there is no doubting that a changed formula has now been used by teams all around.

It consists of batting out the first 10-odd overs, getting one's eye in; once that's done, scoring will become an easy objective.

A day before India takes on the West Indies in their next World Cup Pool B game at the WACA, it was interesting to see hear the views of the two players who walked up to front up the media. What made it more interesting was the fact they were both bowlers.

Jason Holder and Ravichandran Ashwin wore a resigned look while taking about the way things are at the moment for their tribe.

Asked how he was expecting to deal with the regularity with which batsmen get away with big scores, Holder said: "That is a tough question in terms of trying to work to keep these scores down."

He added: "Personally, the way I look at it, I think we have to limit the batsmen scoring on one side. You know, you have to just in a sense narrow down your options to one or two things and try not to cater to too many things."

The West Indies captain had an interesting thing to add. Almost like he wanted his team to go out and enjoy and not over-think the situation.

Holder said: "I think the more we spend pondering on the actual field and fielding restrictions, it makes life a little more difficult. I think the quicker we forget about it, we'll try to come up with ways to execute and be successful."

Of course, he signed off by saying, "But I wouldn't take away the fact that having four fielders outside the ring is quite tough."

Ashwin tried to be more philosophical about the changed rule. He said he had stopped thinking about the extra fielder inside the circle and is trying to overlook the challenges that had become a part of life as a bowler.

He said: "I feel very little. As I said, there are lots of limitations that things are offered to you as a bowler, but those are the challenges. You're faced with more challenges than batters in the modern era when it comes to the colored and white ball. But there is no point in complaining. It's not who I am, and I continue to take up the challenges and enjoy it."

Unfortunately, there cannot be too much enjoyment when your team is going for 400 runs or a batsman is scoring individual double-centuries in this format of the game!

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