The telegraph reports that the ECB is considering ditching the toss for second division country championship matches next year, as a one year trial. Instead, the away side would be given the choice of whether to bat or bowl first.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricke ... story.htmlThe idea is to improve pitches, rather than the current situation where counties prepare pitches tailored to their strengths and hope to win the toss. It is also intended to encourage spinners as wickets are more likely to be fairer. That's the theory anyway.
I think this is definitely worth a try. The toss has long seemed to me to be inequitable, both in domestic or international cricket. Although averaged over history there isn't much correlation between 'win the toss, win the game', within the microcosm of individual matches or short series there are definitely situations where it makes a difference. Alastair Cook lost three tosses in a row in the UAE (odds 1 in 8, not that unlikely), and while it may not have changed the outcome, it certainly didn't help England's cause.
For league systems where everybody plays everybody, home and away, simply giving the away side the choice makes sense. For bilateral series and tournaments the best way to replace the toss is a bit more complex. For bilateral series, I had toyed with the idea of giving the away side the first call, then alternating, (away chooses, home chooses, away chooses etc.), but that invites pitch doctoring in the matches where the groundsman knows that the the home side will get the choice. Given how the trend in bilateral series seems to be for home sides to dominate, I think that giving away sides the call in every game might help to even that out a bit.
For tournaments, I am still not sure, as there is often no 'home or away' side. But where matches are knock-out, the toss can still be too important for it to be fair that one side gets a random advantage. One idea I like is that each captain secretly chooses whether they would prefer to bat or bowl first, and bids a number of runs to get their choice. If the captains want to do different things, then no problem, they both get that. But if the captains both choose the same option, the side who bid more runs gets to do it, but the opposition is given the number of runs the winning side bids
(E.g. Australia bids 30 runs to bat first, England bids 20. Australia bats first, but when England starts its innings, it has 30 runs on the board).
It could make an interesting mind-game dimension at the start that will be just as interesting as the toss.