Cricket: What Can We Expect In The Future?

I have often thought to myself, what does the future hold for the great sport of cricket?

The more evident observations would be things like; bats will get bigger, boundaries smaller and prize money for competitions will be considerably higher.

But what about the teams that play the sport? What will change? Will they still have batsmen that can't bowl and bowlers that can't bat?

I don't think so. It is my belief that instead of the regular seven Batsmen (with one being able to keep) and four bowlers, there will be eleven Batsmen and seven or eight bowlers.

With more and more all-rounders being produced every year, there will be no shortage of bowlers who bat at numbers 9, 10 and 11 scoring regular runs.

Also, most International teams fail to produce wicket-keepers that average above 40. Therefore, take the best batsmen / fielder and work on his wicket keeping. Eventually you will have a solid batsman scoring regular hundreds who keeps wicket, meaning there's no need to waste a place with a keeper that can bat a bit; which, it's fair to say, England seem to do on a regular basis.

The England team today currently has players in the team that only specialize in one department. For example, Monty Panesar is a bowler who doesn't offer a lot with the bat or in the field. Also, England field specialist batsmen like Andrew Strauss, Alistair Cook, Ian Bell; the list goes on.

So, imagine an England side that had a bowler who made fifties at number 11, and had a batsman who the skipper could the throw the ball to and say "get us a breakthrough".

When this is going to happen only time will tell, but be sure, England will not be a team of batsmen and bowlers, but a team of solid all-rounders and exceptional fielders.