Steve Waugh has backed calls from fellow former Australia captain Ricky Ponting and West Indies great Michael Holding for cricket heads to rid Test cricket of the toss.
Under Ponting’s proposal, suggested during the recent Ashes series in England, the away side would choose who bats first to counteract any advantage the hosts might gain from preparing a pitch that suits them best.
Waugh said he was open to the idea.
Photo: Reuters
“I don’t mind that, I think that’s not such a bad thing,” the Australian Associated Press quoted him as saying late on Wednesday. “At the end of the day, I think there’s probably too much emphasis placed on the toss and the conditions away from home. I don’t mind the authorities looking at some other options.”
Holding also favors change after suggestions during the Ashes that groundsmen had been told to prepare deliberately flat pitches to neuter Australia’s pace attack.
“The concerned authorities must look at what Ricky Ponting suggested — no more tosses,” he said in a column for the Wisden India Web site last week.
Photo: AFP
“The minor setback there in my opinion, is that tosses are big for television. It makes for good tension, everyone is focused on that coin when it’s in the air and the winning captain’s decision and so on, but that isn’t relevant now. Times have changed and interest is waning in Test match cricket,” Holding said.
“What you need to do now is to make sure you have even contests between bat and ball,” he said. “For that, there should be no toss and the visiting captain should be allowed to decide what he wants to do after inspecting the pitch.”
Despite backing Ponting, Waugh said losing the toss was not entirely to blame for Australia’s Ashes series defeat, rather their failure to adapt to English conditions had cost them dearly.
“They played poorly. Their batting technique was astray from players of that caliber,” Waugh said, adding that modern cricketers should be able to perform in any conditions.
Separately, Australia pace bowlers Mitchell Johnson and Josh Hazlewood could miss next month’s Test series in Bangladesh so they can rest ahead of a busy summer.
The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday said Cricket Australia was intent on carefully managing their key quicks.
“There’s some important consideration that needs to be given to managing our fast bowlers, not just in Bangladesh, but the full 10-Test season, and that will be part of the discussion,” Cricket Australia team performance manager Pat Howard told the newspaper.
“Mitchell Johnson and Josh Hazlewood are two players that have had heavy workloads and need to be managed carefully if we are to give them the best chance of success throughout that entire period.”
“Neither player has had a pre-season to prepare for the Australian summer and we think that’s particularly important,” he said.
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