By Siddhartha Vaidyanathan Dean Jones approached one-day cricket in the mid-’80s like many others would in the ’90s. He was one of the best when it came to running between the wickets, and he understood the importance of accelerating in the middle overs instead of sitting back and waiting for the last ten. He wore sunglasses to help him take catches when the ball disappeared in the glare of the sun. And he experimented with oval bat handles, which offered better grip, he found, than the traditional cylindrical handles. In 1991, Jones published a book One-Day Magic, which contained suggestions for changing the rules in the one-day format. One of those was to limit the number of fielders outside the circle. Another was to be more “flexible” with regard to bouncers. He also proposed that the lawmakers permit substitutes to bat and bowl, which was something the ICC eventually trialed with the Supersub rule in 2005. So who better than Jones to talk to about some of the innovations he wishes to see in T20s? Currently in Toronto as a TV commentator as well as a brand ambassador for the GT20, Jones spared some time for a chat. Innovation 1: If the ball travels over 85 metres, give the batsmen an 8 I spoke to Don Bradman. I played golf with him, spent time with him. I’m a very lucky man. I once asked him why he hit only six sixes in his Test career. He said, “Why would I lift the ball off the ground and hit it over the fence to get an extra 2? If I got 8 for it, I would have thought about it. In the 1880s, until 1910, if you hit the ball over the fence it was a 5. If you hit the ball out of what they called the “ground proper”, you would get six. So why can’t we say – if you hit a ball more than 85 metres, you have an 8? We’ve had a few 85m hits already in this competition. We have wonderful technology, it’s right on the money. I think we need to have an 8. Innovation 2: Get another umpire down there for calling no-balls This is a bit controversial, but I’ll still go with it. We need another umpire on the ground. Now why? Because there are too many no-balls that are being missed in every game. I asked Geoff Allardice, the ICC general manager, in a forum – how many no-balls are they missing in a 50-over match and in a T20 match? He said between 5 and 7. Five and seven! How much time are we are wasting for the umpire to check for a no-ball after a guy has got out – and we as commentators have called the shot and you see all the celebrations there – and now they’ve got to stymie the celebrations because we’ve got to see if it’s a no-ball. Isn’t it better to use technology for calling no-balls? Now, the technology you need for a no-ball – the infra-red and all that they do for tennis – costs money. And it’s not instantaneous. Let me tell you why that matters. If I’m the coach of Islamabad United and I have one of my batsman, say Andre Russell, on strike. If he takes a single, goes to the other end, and then the technology comes back and says ‘that was a no-ball’ – I don’t want Andre Russell taking that single. He is the biggest hitter in the game. He needs to be on strike. So we need instantaneous calls.