David Leggat: Move to cut down the size of blunderbusses will cheer bowlers

David Warner uses a massive hunk of wood. His Twenty20 Kaboom bats have an 85mm thickness at their fattest part. Photo / Photosport

Bowlers can breathe slightly easier, but only slightly, if the latest recommendations from the high profile MCC world cricket committee are passed.

This body, made up of former test players, has proposed the size of bats be trimmed back.

It's certainly got out of hand, most notably in limited-overs cricket where the ball gets propelled vast distances, often out of all proportion to the quality of the stroke, or how much bat actually gets on the ball.

It's a surprise batsmen don't have to pay excess for their separate case of bats these days.

This is a game which has traditionally been run by former batsmen. Way back a few generations, the batsmen were the artists, the bowlers the workers. Servants and masters, or at least that's the way the bowlers saw it. It hasn't changed that much either.

Now this committee has said it wants to redress the balance.

Take David Warner. The pugnacious Australian opener uses a massive hunk of wood. His T20 Kaboom bats have an 85mm thickness at their fattest part.

The recommendation means all bats will have to be a maximum of 67mm at the spine and 40mm at the edges.

Umpires will be provided with gauges to check their legitimacy.

In reality there will still be plenty of wood to clatter the ball, but if you're a bowler you'll take any bone the committee throws your way.

The boundaries will still be small at many grounds, the price still high for the bowlers.

But it had got to a ridiculous stage with some of the blunderbusses on show these days.

The other high profile recommendation of the committee, which still needs ratification by the International Cricket Council, concerns the proposal for red cards to dismiss players for abusing an umpire or assaulting an opponent.

In reality, this is more aimed at lower grades of cricket. It is rare for a really serious incident at the top level which would merit the waving of a red card.

Think back at the ugly confrontations in international cricket. They've invariably been verbal.

West Indian Marlon Samuels holding back David Hussey in a Big Bash League clash a couple of years ago is one that comes to mind.

Going back 35 years, Javed Miandad and Dennis Lillee would unquestionably have been red carded for their nasty stoush at the WACA Ground in Perth.

But it's not suddenly going to turn cricket into a 10 vs 11 game.

However, simply proposing it suggests the anecdotal evidence is sufficiently strong.

To which the older watchers would doubtless shake their heads and wonder just what the modern game's coming to.