Page 1 - SPLS 1 04_Assessment Task 2_ Essay_The Innovative Century of Cricket_M.Loots

Michelle Loots Assessment Task 2: Essay SPLS 1 04: Sport Structures and Sporting Bodies
The Innovative Century of Cricket
The 21st century has seen some of the most rapid changes in the history of the sport, ranging from not only new
formats of the game but to changes in legislations and policies as well

The 21st century has seen some of the most rapid changes in the game’s history, arguably with the biggest creation of
a new format of the sport known as the Twenty20. The newest innovation of cricket is the evening entertainment of
Twenty20, it has attracted a large number of attendees as well as receiving good audience ratings on and off the TV
screen right around the world, and the opening of the Twenty20 World Cup tournament was finally held in 2007.

The advent of Twenty20 cricket was first played as type of cricket in
English county cricket in 2003, but since then has evolved into a great
innovation within the sport. There are free-scoring batsmen (with big
hitters and strokes played through all 360 degrees), bowlers with
different deliveries and a good increase in the quality of fielding. The
first Women’s T20 was played in 2004, followed by the Men’s T20 first
International being the new format that’s been adopted as the official
format of the game ("Interim regulation changes approved", 2020).

This century has seen the Council introduce the “Test Championship Table”, a year later the “One-day International
Championship Table” was also introduced to the sport. Both of these have evolved into what we now know as the
official MRF Tyres ICC Team Rankings across all three the formats of the sport with the leaders of the Test rankings
holding the ICC Test Championship Mace.

The ICC also expanded their development programme, aiming to produce more national teams capable of competing
at the various formats. In 2004, the ICC Intercontinental Cup brought first-class cricket to 12 nations, mostly for the
first time. The World Cricket League structure brought a more competitive limited cricket overs to many new countries
and there were memorable successes for some associate nations on the global stage with all the countries involved
producing quite famous victories at the ICC Global Events ("History of cricket - Wikipedia", 2021).

There’s been many recent technological evolutions in the game
such as ball tracking, flashing stumps to ensure more accurate
decisions on run outs, and more technology can be used to
calculate results.

A new referral system made its international debut in 2008 in a
series played between India and Sri Lanka – players were now
allowed to refer some of the on-field decisions to the third
umpire. This has now become known as the official Decision
Review System.

By the turn of the 21st century, Australia and England were the only ones who still played Test cricket to full houses,
whereas everywhere else crowds rather flocked to see the limited-overs internationals and Test cricket became almost
an afterthought. In the year of 2005 the International Cricket Council moved their offices from Lord’s in London, which
was the home of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the game’s original rulers and is still its lawmakers, to Dubai
where they shifted away from the old ways of governance. The priorities of the game changed too. With the power to
change the laws of the sport still remaining with the MCC, the ICC decided to developed their own Code of Conduct
for the players, officials, and administrators, setting out disciplinary procedures and that protects the spirit within the
game. They also organize other major international tournaments, such as the Twenty20 World Cups, one-day and the
Champions Trophy. In the year 2000 the ICC set up their Anti-Corruption Unit, which was later renamed in 2003 the
Anti-Corruption Unit and Security Unit in 2003 to combat the growing threat of match fixing ("Interim regulation
changes approved", 2020).