Umpires should call dead ball if a batsman tries to play a switch-hit: Ian Chappell

Former Australia cricketer Ian Chappell has been in the news over the last few days for his comments on switch-hit. Glenn Maxwell played the much-talked about shot nonchalantly during the ODI series against India and churned out a lot of runs. Chappell had then only suggested that such shots which give an unfair advantage to the batsmen should be banned.

He has now come up with another alternative suggesting the on-field officials to call it a dead-ball every time a batsman tries to play a switch-hit. According to Ian Chappell, with no incentive of runs after playing an outrageous shot, the players will obviously stop playing it in the due course. He also felt that the field placements from a bowler becomes redundant in that case.

“In the case of the switch hit, the batsman has one prime objective in mind: to make the bowler’s field placings redundant. Considering the bowler – in consultation with his captain – places his field taking into account the batsman’s style, how can it then be fair that the batsman becomes the opposite type of player with the bowler having no recourse to a change of field?

“This obviously hands a huge advantage to a highly skilled switch-hitter,” Chappell wrote in his column for ESPNCricinfo. When the former Aussie skipper suggested that the shot should be banned, the renowned umpire Simon Taufel who is now retired from the job had stated that it would be a lot of burden on the on-field umpires to check for the same.

Ian Chappell disagrees with Simon Taufel

However, Ian Chappell disagrees with Taufel’s views. According to him, the square-leg umpire is anyways having a close look at the batsman’s feet to capture a stumping appeal and he can always pick batsman’s foot movement while playing a switch-hit and call it a dead ball.

“The respected former international umpire Simon Taufel suggested the already heavily burdened on-field officials would find it difficult to adjudicate on any switch of the hands or feet. With all due respect to a man who has done the job very effectively, I disagree.

“The square-leg umpire is already paying close attention to the batsman’s feet in case there is a stumping, so he’ll notice any change of order. If a batsman changes the order of his feet, then the square-leg umpire ought to simply declare the ball dead and no runs result,” Chappell further wrote.