Thread by @gauravsabnis

Wait, you're telling me that a random coin toss to decide the order of whether you do your run-making in the first half of the game or second half of the game is a consequential factor in a 3 hour version of cricket held in desert venues that rarely host cricket!!?? #NZvAUS

A simple rule change that can somewhat mitigate the very obviously heavy impact a toss has on ICC trophy results would be to allow teams to finalize their XIs after the toss instead of before it.

No one has ever explained to me why teams need to be frozen before the toss.

Even in test matches. Let teams choose their XIs after the toss. It'll just result in better selections for both teams. What exactly is being gained by continuing to freeze teams before toss, when so much can be gained by changing that random rule?

Your thoughts, @cricketingview? What is so central to the game of cricket about the XI being chosen before the toss, a random convention that doesn't really seem to add anything to the game cricket wise?

Much like the random restriction of 20% of all overs for any bowler in LOI Cricket, this rule that an XI must be frozen before the toss is just a random bureaucratic tradition. It hampers the actual gameplay, which should be between the best players on both sides.

Our cousin sport, baseball, has no tosses. Home team bats last.
Of course, in MLB, there is always a home team. Even in the world series. They play the All Star game to decide which team gets the 7th game at home.
Plus baseball has at least 9 innings each. So impact minimized.

But pyjama cricket has only one innings each. Very often in neutral venues. So not only is the sequence of batting very much more important than a baseball game with 9 innings or a test match with 2 innings, but there's no objective way to get rid of the coin toss most times.

So something as simple as, there's the coin toss, and then you can choose your final XI until play starts.... That would do so much to reduce the disproportionately large impact the toss plays today in ways not imagined in 1800s rural England cricket when they made the rule.

You won't need to change any record books or scorecard patterns. Just let extend the deadline of selecting your final eleven until the start of play. Won't completely get rid of the toss as a stochastic determinant of outcomes, but will at least mitigate the problem somewhat.