Without tiebreak measures, cricket fans could have been left with no clear winner, and Djokovic and Federer might still be playing
THE NERVES of myriad sports-lovers were shredded last weekend. After almost five hours of tennis, Novak Djokovic of Serbia beat Roger Federer of Switzerland in a fifth-set tiebreak at Wimbledon. Ten miles away, at Lord’s, England beat New Zealand to win the Cricket World Cup by a ridiculously narrow margin. Tied after 50 six-ball overs, the sides played out a final “super over”, which was again tied.
Tiebreaks in sport deliver a victor in situations where rivals have not been separated by conventional means. Sometimes—think league matches in football—a draw is considered acceptable. Other times—joint World Cup winners, anyone?–such a result just will not do. Only 17% of rugby fans were satisfied after the British and Irish Lions’ three tests against New Zealand in 2017 failed to produce an overall winner, according to a poll by Sky Sports.
Tiebreaks in cricket are more recent. Test matches still end in draws, to the mystification of non-aficionados. “Bowl-outs”, when bowlers try to hit the stumps at the other end of the pitch, were introduced to decide shorter forms of the game in 1991. But these only reward a team’s bowling prowess, not its batting or fielding. And so the “super over”, in which each team faces six extra balls, has become the tiebreak of choice in recent years for certain 50- and 20-over matches.
England won the cricket World Cup this year because they scored 26 boundaries to New Zealand’s 17, irking those who see no particular virtue in boundary-hitting. But many sports have stories of arbitrary tiebreakers. Turkey qualified for the football World Cup in 1954 when a blindfolded teenage boy drew its name from a bag after its play-off match against Spain had resulted in a draw.
After this weekend’s results, some pundits have suggested shared titles may be more sporting. Tiebreaks, after all, often fail to reflect competitors’ performances during the whole game, or indeed to reward the skills for which they are chosen. Ten years ago one of Cardiff’s hulking forwards, more used to pushing and shoving, failed to kick the ball between the posts during rugby’s own version of a penalty shoot-out, and thus lost his team an important European game.
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