Maybe my memory is planning tricks on me, but I seem to remember that captains always used to enforce the follow-on. If you had the opportunity to do it, you did it, no questions asked. And then you’d go on to win the match.
The famous exception to this was, of course, Headingley 1981. England follow-on 227 behind, score 356, and win by 18 runs. But that’s what made it famous – it was so unexpected. In 1966 Tests, a team following on has only gone on to win the match on three occasions.
But now the possibility of enforcing the follow-on seems to only cause problems. It has become an opportunity for consultation, hand-wringing and head-scratching. To enforce, or not to enforce, that is the question.
Suddenly bowlers can apparently no longer cope with two innings in a row in the field. Suddenly batting on a fourth day pitch has apparently become even more difficult than it was before.
Two examples from the last week. In the first Test against Pakistan, most of the talk on the evening of the second day was about whether Andrew Strauss would put the Pakistanis back in if he could. In the end, the choice was taken from him, but the consensus, amazingly, seemed to be that England would have batted again anyway.
And then today at Cheltenham, Alex Gidman decided not to put Worcestershire back in with a deficit of 202 and a day and half left in the match. The GlosCricketBlog has a few thoughts on why he might have done it, but it makes no sense at all to me.
Of course, Gloucestershire may get the ten wickets they need tomorrow, and wrap up an easy win. But by taking almost forty overs out of the game to bat again, they have surely given themselves less chance of doing so.
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