Before T20, it was Cricket Max in New Zealand

Stuart Cope | July 08, 2024

Did you know that before T20's inception in 2003, New Zealand Cricket invented a new format of the game back in 1996 called 'Cricket Max'.

It was the brainchild of Martin Crowe who claimed "I Invented and designed Cricket Max because I felt it was time to provide to our spectators and TV viewers a game of cricket that was short in duration, very colourful, kept some old traditions and highlighted the best skills in the game."

Rules of the format;

The format of the game involved two teams playing two innings of ten-overs each. It was played on traditional grounds but with one subtle difference. Both sides of the ground had a special ‘Super-Max’ carved out covering the region between long-off and long-on. Basically, every shot that the batter would hit in the Max-zone, they were rewarded with double-returns. If they hit a four in the Max zone, it was considered as ‘eight’ or if they had stroked a six, it was considered as ‘twelve’.

Other rules of Super-Max cricket;

1. Each side could feature 13 players in their side.

2. The duration of an over was eight balls.

3. There were 4 stumps and 3 bails.

4. Wides were credited as two runs to the batters on strike.

5. There was no LBW and the next ball after no-ball was considered to be a free-hit.

Cricket Max was played at international level between NZ and India but failed to get the buy in from other national cricket boards and ultimately failed.

I have a lot of respect for the administrators of NZ cricket for having the foresight to give this a try in the 90s, you could argue that they were just a little too early with the innovation.

Can you imagine if this took off and was what t20 is now..... ??