Former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar has called for a meaningful change in cricket's playing regulations, urging Sourav Ganguly to advocate for fast bowlers at the international level to bring back the balance. According to Gavaskar, the modern game has intensely been in favour of batters, particularly in T20 cricket. Ganguly, who currently serves as chairman of the ICC Men’s Cricket Committee, has been asked by Gavaskar to raise the issue at the committee's upcoming meeting.

“There’s the ‘wide ball’ call for a bouncer going barely over the batter’s head. This is like asking a fast bowler to bowl with one hand tied behind his back. C’mon, give him some leeway. After all, with boundary lengths being shortened even though there’s enough space to push them back, the bowlers are being short-changed, and now, with this interpretation where the ball is called a wide if it goes above the batter’s head in his normal stance, the quickies are being handicapped even more,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for Sportstar. 

“If that rule can be tweaked to allow the quick a margin of one foot, approximately the length of the bat handle, above the head while in his batting stance, that would give the fast bowler some relief and encouragement to fire in some more,” he added.

Looking back at his term as chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee, Gavaskar recalled how he brought sweeping changes to completely bar bowlers from bowling bouncers.  

“When I took over as Chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee, the other members joined me in bringing the bouncer back in the format, albeit one per over per batsman. The pinch-hitters disappeared. More importantly, the bowlers got one of their weapons back. You don’t restrict a batter from playing any shot, do you? So why restrict the bowlers from trying all the varieties that they possess? That’s why there is a case to give the speedsters a little more leeway as far as the definition of the wide bouncer is concerned,” Gavaskar wrote.

Gavaskar asserted that a quality batter should be able to deal with the deliveries that go a little above head height. 

“A good batter should be able to score off a bouncer, which is about a bat handle’s height above his normal stance. That might even up the battle slightly in a format where, more often than not, even the best fast bowlers in the game are in for a hiding. So, c’mon Sourav Ganguly, when you chair the next ICC Cricket Committee meeting, spare a thought for the bowling fraternity too,” he added.