Whilst I feel slightly dirty for even suggesting using such a horribly artificial one day concept in the test game the inescapable fact is that even though it's still early days (in international terms anyway) it does seem to have virtually eliminated the no ball from one day cricket. Bowlers have demonstrated that with a sufficiently severe penalty hanging over them they can easily keep their foot behind the frontline and sporadically overstepping is not just one of those unavoidable things that inevitably happens to all fast bowlers but sloppy lazy cricket.

Now whilst you really don't want to see a compelling session of tight test cricket interupted by a sudden wild slog that belongs in the hit and giggle format you also don't want to see bowlers continuing to get away with overstepping and slowing down the already pathetic over rate.

Thoughts, comments welcome;

No,no and no again.

Leave test cricket alone,if it aint broke don't fix it.

Leave all the gimmicks to the shorter versions of the game please.

Although I have an instinctive reaction which is with Greg, I have to curb the instinct for a moment and betray some ignorance:

How does the free hit work please?

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Well OF if a bowler oversteps, hence resulting in a front foot no-ball, the next ball he bowls will be considered a free hit. A free hit means that the batsman cannot be out off the next ball unless of course he is runout. Thus if the batsman is bowled caught, etc, he will be given not out. Of course this results in the batsman producing an almighty slog off the ball. A free hit is an additional penalty on a no ball. By that I mean that it still cost the fielding team 1 run and the batsman cannot be out unless run out and the bowler will have to rebowl the ball. The only difference is that the next ball is treated like a no ball as well (because the batsman cannot be given out).

On the issue of adopting this in test cricket I agree with Greg.
I would however like to see the head high full toss being punished. Maybe they should give the batsman 2 free hits

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And they are already doing that in one-day cricket? I was not aware.

Anyway, it's not got any place in test cricket in my view. I'm not sure about the free hits for a beamer either. They are very unusual and almost always entirely accidental, and generally I am against punishing accidents. If there's any suggestion that it might have been deliberate, then the bowler should be taken off immediately and penalty runs awarded. I'll take a look at the dangerous play Law when I have some time - isn't there something in there to cover it?

Follow up: interesting: Law 42 allows for the bowler to be taken off for repeatedly and deliberately bowling full high pitched balls, but does not apply a penalty. Five runs would seem to be in order to me.

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So do I. The ODI needs free hits to make it less of a predictable contest. Tests don't.

I don't have a problem with bowlers no-balling in Test cricket: if they want to risk over-stepping that's fine by me. Moreover, the last thing cricket needs (in the Test or ODI game) is any more rules that favour batsmen!

The Free Hit rule is a gimmick, it is great for the shorter forms of the game. But Tests don't need the gimmicks!!

The fact is that if a bowler does bowl a no ball in Tests, and a wicket is "lost" that is punishment enough IMO

I do have a problem with the rule though. When a free hit is signalled, why is the Captain and the bowler allowed to change the field? IMO the field should remain the same.

It is a big flaw that when a free hit is called the Captain can change the field.

I thought that was only the case if the batsmen crossed for some reason? I'm sure in the Twenty20 commentaries I heard the TMS team mention that - I'll go and check.

Edit: Looks like you can't change the field:

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No, I disagree. Keep test cricket as it is.

The free hit should stay in the ODI form of the game.

This would mess the test game up.

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