Bonus points are killing New Zealand cricket

Press, 21 April 1979, Page 12

Bonus points are killing New Zealand cricket

By

SIMPSON GUILLEN,

a former West Indies

and New Zealand test wicket-keeper-batsman

Cricket is a game which has to be played at a sensible rate. Played too

slowly, it becomes uninteresting, even boring. Played erratically it has a similar lack of appeal. Under the new systems of bonus points introduced at club and first-class level by the administrator, it becomes just that — uninteresting and boring. I am sure that the bonus points were introduced to speed the tempo of the game, but instead, they have brought about a complete change, making the game almost unrecognisable. Scores of 300 in a day are unheard of, batsmen score centuries very seldom. Slow bowlers are getting scarcer every year and very few wicket-keepers are able to tell a top-spin-ner from a googly because

they rarely get a chance to stand up to the wicket. The game has become defensive because captains insist on using their fast bowlers throughout the innings. Captains declare their innings closed at perhaps 150, depriving the batsmen of the opportunity to exercise their abilities, all because bonus points have taken over the game. A good game of cricket was never won or lost by bonus points. It is won by the team acquiring most runs in a given time, a time which gives both teams a fair chance to use their batsmen and bowlers.

You cannot build an international team unless you have good club and

first-class players. Good batsmen, fast bowlers, slow bowlers and wicketkeepers can not be produced from the present j ystem, only Sunday cricketers.

Club cricket plays the most important part in a player’s career and it should be given the utmost attention. Let us hope that next season, cricket will revert to its original state, where in club cricket points are given for first innings and outright wins, and at least three or four days are given to first-class fitures, and no bonus points. The selectors would then have a chance to select reasonable teams of first-class and test cricketers.