'New ODI rules will be interesting'

Mumbai, July 9: South African all-rounder Ryan McLaren has said that the new One-Day International playing conditions would be helpful to the bowlers in the slog phase of the 50-over games, but were unlikely to alter the attacking mindset built over the years by the batsmen.

"It will be interesting to see how the batting team structures their innings," he has been quoted by Cricket South Africa of saying in Mirpur yesterday ahead of the team's first ODI against hosts Bangladesh tomorrow.

"May be they will go slightly harder at the initial phase of the innings, we will wait and see, every team is going to have a different opinion on that. It will obviously be a bit of a trial-and-error method in the beginning," said 31-year-old McLaren.

"If you look at the statistics from the World Cup, it was quite clear to see that over the last 10 overs there were many occasions where more than 100 runs were scored," he said.

"It shows that the batsmen were dominating the bowling in that facet of the game. There is no doubt that from a bowling point of view the new rules help, but I don't think it's going to change the mindset of the batters," he added.

The new playing conditions for T20Is and ODIs came into force on July 5.

PTI