Maybe you picture a workmanlike off-spinner having a good length ball pushed back with a textbook forward defensive. The dot is the DNA of cricket. It happens when nothing else happens. It's part of the unique rhythm of the game. The bit that people who don't understand it scratch their heads and say "this is boring".
In most formats the dot is the king. There are far more balls where no runs are scored, and statistical analysis of these balls has shown that it can be where games are won and lost. It's all to do with what happens when nothing happens. Because there are two types of dots. The first dot is the one we all think of; the one where the batsman is in control.
He or she doesn't have to play at it and it sails harmlessly past without comment. All of this makes it easier for the bowlers to bowl dot balls. In crunch situations, when the bowling team is playing for time or want to delay the inevitable, they often resort to negative bowling and earn maidens in the process.
A single maiden is a non-event in Test cricket. ODIs are a different ball game. There is always a result with a rare tie. The fielding teams have to adhere to the fielding restrictions, the umpires are very strict with certain rules and thus the bowlers cannot bowl the lines they want always. A maiden in ODI cricket is not a non-event. It takes bowling very good line and lengths, and a bit of luck at times, to bowl a maiden. Teams across the world plan their chases down to each over these days.
And a maiden over abrupts those plans thus initiating a chain reaction that often ends up helping the bowling team. Especially in the middle overs between 15 to 35, when the bowling teams are trying to restrict the scoring rate, the economical bowler who can bowl maidens worth his weight in gold.
The shorter the format, the greater the importance of maiden. In T20 cricket, each team gets 20 overs to play and each bowler gets just 4 overs to bowl. These are huge percentages in the context of a match. Add to it the fact that the batting teams are always looking to go after the bowlers, it is so very difficult to bowl a maiden in T20 cricket. That is why the top bowler in T20I cricket, Jasprit Bumrah, has bowled just 7 maidens so far.
Smart bowlers with great control over their line and length can achieve this with astute field placement and, of course, a bit of luck. In T20s, a maiden is as big as a wicket if not more.
A super over decides the fate of the game, in the ODI knockout matches, and all the T20 matches across the world when the game ends with the scores leveled after the completion of both the innings. Each team gets two wickets and one over to make an impact. Tied at after completing each of their innings, Trinidad and Tobago went batting first in the Super over and managed 11 losing one wicket. The Warriors needed 12 to win in the super over. A wicket maiden Super Over.
If it is hard to believe, have a look at it yourself in the video above. The record for most consecutive maidens in cricket goes to Bapu Nadkarni , a left-arm orthodox spinner from India who bowled 21 consecutive maidens against England in in the first Test of the series.
Overall, he bowled Back in , Hugh Tayfield had bowled deliveries without conceding a single run. Although it was in a match where an over consisted of 8 deliveries.
Tests are a game of patience and generally, the conditions also get tougher as the game progress towards day 4 or 5. Due to the unlimited overs available for batting, batsmen tend to play out tough spells and score later once the going gets easy again.
The Sri Lankan legend Muttiah Muralitharan is at the top of this list with maidens in innings in the Test career that lasted for 18 years. Table showing the most maiden overs bowled in a Test Match Career. Each ball has more value in ODIs than in Tests. Muralitharan features in this list as well. Dot balls worth their weight in gold in T20 cricket. If it is a bit difficult to bowl maidens in ODIs, it is extremely unlikely to bowl one in T20 cricket.
Does this tactic really work? It's based on the theory of building pressure in one day cricket: The longer you can go squeezing a team, the more likely they are to try something unusual and get out. I've heard it for years and seen it work at every level of the game from villiage to professional cricket.
We analyse every game, so we can be very clear about the "something". In this case, it means a wicket falling, a catch dropped or a stumping missed. In other words, a chance taken or missed.
NB: If you don't keep a note of missed chances, you can still do this, just use the scorebook to count the dots and count the "something" as a wicket falling. It's not quite as accurate but it gives you a good enough figure to show the team. That is to say, the number of dot balls it takes to create a chance for a wicket. Of course, numbers and spreadsheets are not much use unless you can put them into practical action. First, it means that our team now know we are, on average, only 12 dots from a chance.
And as we bowl about 4 dots an over, that's two or three overs just by "sitting in" and doing the basics well. You always get the cricketer who is against dot ball bowling because he wants to strike.
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