Test Matches - Cricket - Britannica

21st-century developments

The advent of Twenty20 cricket (T20) and the wild success of the IPL in the first decade of the 21st century led to a period of great innovation in the game. The new, truncated form of the game favored the batting side, partly by restricting the placement of fielders and shortening the boundaries. To counter free-scoring batsmen with heavy bats, bowlers began to perfect variations of balls (deliveries). Disguise became an essential part of the bowler’s armory. Slow spin-bowling, which forces the batsman to generate “pace” (that is, to provide the bulk of the power to propel the batted ball, whereas fast bowling contributes more force to the batsman’s swing), proved a surprisingly effective weapon. Among the new shots that became commonplace for batsmen in T20 cricket was the reverse sweep, wherein a right-handed batsman, in mid-delivery, changes hands to swing at the ball like a left-hander (or a left-hander swings like a right-hander). Batters also began employing the scoop, a shot played almost vertically over the wicketkeeper’s head. Test cricket also benefited from these new techniques and from the new era of creativity, not least from the introduction of the doosra, a delivery disguised to look like an off-spinner that actually turns away from the right-handed batsman like a leg-spinner. Developed by the Pakistan off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq and taking its name from the Urdu expression meaning “the other one,” the ball was perfected by Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka,

Cricket also followed other sports in its use of video technology in making on-field decisions. Initially, from its first trial in 1992, only line decisions such as run outs were decided by referral to a third umpire off the field. But in 2008 a new referral system, in which players were allowed to refer any on-field decision to the third umpire, made its international debut in a series between India and Sri Lanka (it had been put on trial in English county cricket in 2007). Each side receives two referrals every innings (down from three when the system was first tried out). Referrals that result in the umpire changing an original decision are not counted against this total. The system was designed to eradicate an umpire’s innocent but obvious mistake and has been greeted with more enthusiasm by players than umpires.

Six teams each in the men’s and women’s categories will compete in T20I tournaments during the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. The sport will return to the roster after 128 years. Cricket was last an Olympic event at the 1900 Paris Games.