How and why a total of 500 is possible

He wouldn’t have even contemplated that some day, 16 international teams would figure in the World Cup with the prospect of giants like Australia and South Africa playing minnows Scotland and Bermuda, throwing open the chances of a total of 500 runs in a single innings on board.

If this were to happen in the ensuing event spanning over the next two months — and there is a strong possibility — then Packer, given that he had once lost £13.6m in a three-day baccarat binge at Las Vegas, would have bet his last penny on it.

For those thinking on the same lines, waiting for the unthinkable to happen, their best chance would lie in booking seats for matches like Australia vs Scotland at St Kitts, Sri Lanka vs Bermuda at Trinidad, South Africa vs The Netherlands at Guyana, among others.

Considering the rate at which the teams have scored in one-dayers last year, the prevailing horror for international bowlers in terms of the existing Power Play rules, the set standard of 15 overs of fielding restrictions now growing to 20, the ICC Omerta secretly ensures that flat pitches remain the order of the day and finally the advent of players of the Twenty-20 kind — will leave no question unanswered as to why a total of 500 in 50 overs is not possible.

The best possible chance of such an occurrence, unforeseen but quite logical, can be gauged from the scorecard of the record-breaking ODI between South Africa and Australia played at Johannesburg last year.

In that match, after batting first and scoring 434, Australia lost. Ricky Ponting scored his 20th century, a mammoth 164, blazing away to 13 boundaries and nine sixes in that innings at a strike rate of 156.2. In reply, Herschelle Gibbs blasted 175 off 144 deliveries, 21 boundaries and seven sixes showing his team the way. The match, though, wasn’t about these individuals. It was the greatest one-dayer ever fought between the two best sides in world cricket and threw open an array of future possibilities over what could happen.

As many as 452 runs came in boundaries (74 fours and 26 sixes) in a total of 873 runs, but it wasn’t just about that massive run-glut. It was about the approach of the two teams in reaching the figure(s) and that is where an optimist would have looked for more.

Australia scored 97 runs in the first 15 overs — a strike rate of 6.46; 119 runs in the next 15 — at 7.933 — and 156 between the 30th and the 45th overs — at 10.4. When South Africa took centrestage with a daunting task, their approach was unlike how the Aussies had advanced. South Africa reached 190 in the first 20 overs with a strike rate of 9.58 and 300 in the 30th over with a Perfect 10 strike rate. With just 134 required in the remaining 20 overs, it was a simple calculation of scoring six runs per over to achieve the target.

In hindsight, if Australia were to score at 10.4 in the first 15 overs — they did that between the 30th and 45th overs — and if South Africa were to score at exactly 10 runs per over in the remaining 20 — which they didn’t need to considering the target — a total of 500 isn’t an astronomical figure after all.

The pitches in the West Indies, almost all newly laid, wouldn’t need the orthodox spinner and even Sir Garry Sobers vouches for it. Instead, Sobers — like Sir Vivian Richards — cannot resist cracking knuckles over the possibility of the venues there being the proverbial batsman’s paradise. To top it all, this World Cup will have far too many teams with inconsistent bowling strength at the international level bowling to the most aggressive batting sides. Most teams — Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India — have, on an average, three batsmen with a career strike rate of more than 85.

Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana may have begun with the concept of an opener turning pinch-hitter in 1996 or, maybe, Mark Greatbatch in 1992, but the familiarity of batting in that position has considerably changed over the past decade. Why, even the most successful opening pair of Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar successfully scored at a strike rate of close to eight for almost five years.

For Australia, Adam Gilchrist and Mathew Hayden have been brutal compared to none. Of Hayden’s seven centuries, five have come at a rate of nine runs per over while Gilchrist, at his savage best, has managed to score at a strike rate of 121 consistently on way to scoring his hundreds. Meanwhile, Ponting’s aggression has already been discussed in that monumental match against the Proteas.

Aussies, though, aren’t even the favourites they would have liked to be if not for the disastrous losses to New Zealand recently. If the examples of Gilchrist, Hayden and Ponting aren’t enough, the Kiwis are sure to provide more of it. Jacob Oram, in the best form of his life, is ready to get his finger amputated so that he can be a part of the hitting bandwagon. Oram and his colleagues, Brendon McCullum and Craig MacMillan took run-chases to another level altogether when they got past Australia’s massive scores of 336 and 346 in consecutive matches last month.

Lastly, even India could be in that race to pull off the unthinkable, if Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid and Mahendra Singh Dhoni get going.

Consider this. Outerbridge, Pitcher, Smith and Tucker (all Bermuda) bowling to Gilchrist, Hayden, Ponting & Co or, for that matter, Szwarczunski, Doeschate and Schiferli (of the Netherlands) bowling to Gibbs, Boucher, (Graeme) Smith and Kemp. Even the idea of Sehwag, Dhoni, Ganguly and Tendulkar facing Poonia, Rogers and Lyons (Scotland) is quite tempting.

To their misery, these players will have to bear the ignominy of bowling to batsmen who’ve incorrigibly grounded attacks to dust over the world. Last, but not the least, the rule of Power Play could live by the word itself. Therefore, 500 isn’t unthinkable anymore.