These are the top 10 ideas of Mr. John Buchanan to innovate some new ideas into cricket.. Do comment..
10. Ambidextrous 3rd Umpire: In the futuristic world, an ambidextrous umpire would be able to click the "OUT"/"NOT OUT" button either with his left hand or right hand. In case a referral happens when the 3rd umpire is using his right hand to drink lemonade, talk on the cell phone to bookies, shave his beard, or goof around with a PlayStation - he can quickly use his left hand to deliver the decision.
9. Magnetic Pitches: Players play on pitches that has magnetic properties. The ball has an embedded object in it also with magnetic properties. At the moment the ball pitches on the wicket it can do one of two things (a) stick to the wicket or (b) get repelled by the pitch (due to dynamically changing pole orientation) and simulate a random bad bounce. The unpredictability introduced to the situation will make cricket all the more exciting.
8. Blinking Floodlights: This innovative idea simulates a disco dance floor inside a cricket stadium. The rapid ON/OFF switching of floodlights would mean that the players, fielders, spectators and batsman can barely sight the ball. The increased suspense and unpredictability gives the coach more options and allows him to implement various strategies.
7. Auto Shut Helmets: Modern technology that totally covers the batsman's face and shuts out all light from outside. Consequently, the batsman's world becomes very dark. This serves two purposes. (a) The batsman can shut himself out to a period of intense concentration and when he reopens the helmet the ball will be bright and visible. (b) The bowler has 3 PowerOff play options . This is a play where the batsman has to shut his helmet totally and face 1 over for every PowerOff Play
6. Yo-Yo Balls. This technology involves a elastic band. One end is tied to the ball on the other to the bowlers hand. The bowler runs up and delivers the ball. The ball teases the batsman by appearing to come towards him but suddenly retreats back to the bowler. The bowler can optionally slip in a yo-yo delivery after bowling a few normal deliveries. This tests the skills of the batsman to reach out and hit a ball that is actually rapidly going away from him. The bowler now need not worry his line. A new skill call "recession point" will come into play where the bowler will start to make the ball recede away from the batsman at an optimum point. This optimum point will ensure that the ball slightly touches the bat before receding completely back to the bowler and it recedes at a pace that allows the ball to comeback to the bowler without pitching again.
5. Wired Abdomen Guards. This technology has two wires extending out of the batsman's abdomen guard to touch his scrotum. There are 3 controls to this abdomen guard. The Umpire has one control and can press the control when (a) batsman shows dissent and (b) has played out more than 2 maiden overs. Since 3rd umpire is ambidextrous they can zap the batsman and at the same time browse porn in their 3rd umpire's monitor. The bowler has a control pad. The bowler can either bowl one bouncer per over or press this control pad to zap the batsman's balls at the time of delivery. The batsman has the third control, which he can press to zap himself back into concentration.
4. Short-Leg Y.G.Mahendra. As a special request erstwhile comedian Y.G. Mahendra has made a secret pact with John Buchanan to help stimulate activity in the cricket field. Y.G. Mahendra serves two powerful purposes (a) stand at forward short-leg and tell jokes to the batsman. The consequent brain damage caused to the batsman will make the task of concentrating and batting a challenging task. (b) Opposition teams can use "Zen & Y.G.M." to practise intense tolerance levels. The coach can have YGM talk to a batsman for several hours. This will improve the batsman's tolerance and patience levels so much that batting all 5 days of a match will look like child's play.
3. Jack In The Pitch Batsman: The batsman does stand at the crease. But instead of above the pitch, he stands underneath the pitch. Exactly at the time the bowler is on his delivery stride, the section of the pitch near the striker opens and the batsman pops out via a hybrid spring technology. How the batsman manages to hit the ball while flying up is exactly where his skill is tested.
2. Disappearing Bowlers: The bowler wears clothes that uses light absorption technology based on properties of a black hole. The bowler disappears at the start of the run-up and then re-appears at the point of delivering the ball. The consequent surprise at the delivery point, combined with the bowler trying to zap the batsman's balls as the batsman is popping from underneath the pitch is sure to be a glorious cricketing moment.
1. Multiple Umpires at each end. In what will revolutionize cricket we will have 5 umpires at the non-strikers end, 3 leg umpires and 3 off-umpires. Each of them will give their own decision for every appeal by the bowler. Not only that - they will call their own wides, no-balls, and bouncers. In case of conflicting decisions to a bowler's appeal a dynamic algorithm will calculate the weighted average of (3 * Main Umpire + 2* Leg Umpire - 1/2 * Off-Umpire). Phase-2 of multiple umpire situation will involve multiple bowlers bowling to one batsman. At that time if N represents the number of bowlers appealing and M the number of bowlers not-appealing the decision will be calculated based on nCn-1 (N ^ 2)(3 * Main Umpire + 2* Leg Umpire - 1/2 * Off-Umpire) - d/dx (1/Sqrt(M) * 3 * Main Umpire + 2* Leg Umpire - 1/2 * Off-Umpire)).
