'Don't make run scoring easier in Tests': Sunil Gavaskar rejects Sairaj Bahutule's free-hit in Tests suggestion to curb no-ball
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'Don't make run scoring easier in Tests': Sunil Gavaskar rejects Sairaj Bahutule's free-hit in Tests suggestion to curb no-ball originally appeared on Cricket News. Add Cricket News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Sunil Gavaskar wants fines for bowlers and bowling coaches after India's no-ball trouble during their Sri Lanka Test series win.
- Ravindra Jadeja and debutant Saransh Jain repeatedly overstepped, with 13 no-balls bowled by India in the second Test alone.
- Gavaskar dismissed bowling coach Sairaj Bahutule's idea of free hits in Tests, saying it would make batting even easier.
Sunil Gavaskar slams free hit idea in Test cricket: Rejects Sairaj Bahutule's suggestion
No-balls have become a bit of a headache for Team India, and Sunil Gavaskar isn't letting it slide quietly. Despite India's 1-0 series win over Sri Lanka, the former opener has pushed for fines, and plenty of them, for bowlers and bowling coaches every time someone oversteps the crease.
In just the second Test, India sent down 13 no-balls, with Saransh Jain and Ravindra Jadeja together responsible for 11 of those across both innings.
Jadeja's issues with front-foot no-balls aren't new, either, as he'd already leaked four in the series opener at Galle, which is now becoming a recurring theme throughout his career.
Since 2021, Jadeja alone has bowled more than 85 no-balls, which is a number that's hard to ignore for someone with his experience. Jain, playing his first Test, wasn't much better in the second innings at Colombo, spraying down several of his own.
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Bahutule's free-hit idea gets shot down by Gavaskar
All this overstepping got India's bowling coach Sairaj Bahutule thinking out loud about whether Test cricket needs its own version of the free hit, borrowed straight from limited-overs cricket, to finally stamp out the problem.
Gavaskar wasn't having any of it and, writing in his Mid-Day column, he made his opinion pretty clear from the outset, as he argued that the no-ball issue needs sorting out fast before it starts swinging matches the wrong way.
"The no-balls being bowled by the Indian bowlers came in for a fair bit of comment. This has to be looked at urgently because it can change the colour of the game," he wrote.
He pointed out that overstepping is entirely avoidable these days, given how easy it now is to mark a run-up accurately. "There are very few aspects of the game that are totally in the players' control... today, with a tape measure available to mark the run-up, there should be no excuses for overstepping the bowling crease."
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As for the free-hit suggestion specifically, Gavaskar batted it away without much hesitation.
"The India team's spin coach jokingly said that giving a free hit after a no-ball might help in curbing the offence. Please, let's not make scoring runs in Test cricket easier for batters with this penalty," he wrote.
Rather than free hits, Gavaskar's pitching something with a bit more sting.
"How about a fine which gets doubled for every further transgression, plus half the amount of the fine for the bowling coach, too," he suggested, adding that the money collected could fund the team's farewell dinner at the end of a tour.
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(Getty)
Gavaskar's got this one right with his no-ball suggestion
Honestly, Gavaskar's take here makes a lot more sense than Bahutule's off-the-cuff free-hit idea. Test cricket's already leaning batter-friendly; what with bouncer limits and shrinking boundaries and throwing free hits into the mix would just tip the scales further.
A no-ball in the longest format is a discipline issue, and bowlers have every tool available to avoid it. Escalating fines is smart precisely because it hits repeat offenders harder without messing with the actual contest between bat and ball.
Jadeja's numbers since 2021 tell their own story, as 85-plus no-balls isn't bad luck. It's a pattern that needed addressing years ago. If they start imposing fines, rather than handing free runs to the batting side, it keeps the focus where it belongs: on bowlers actually fixing a fixable problem, not on rewriting the format's balance to paper over it.
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