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In his latest blog for Eurosport-Yahoo!, former England Test batsman Graham Thorpe applauds the ICC for one of their latest rule changes.

"One-day captains have been handed another tactical decision to make by the ICC with one of the two powerplays to be picked by the batting side and I think it is a good move.

"20 over cricket is pushing the 50 over game very hard so anything to boost the appeal of one-day cricket is welcome.

"I have already experienced this sort of innovation when I was playing with New South Wales and everyone was thinking that the batting skipper would just go for the powerplay in the final five overs.

"But it doesn't work like that especially if you lose early wickets and you don't have your best players at the death.

"Obviously the fielding skipper keeps his best death bowler back for the final overs and we found that the batting captain often used the powerplay up front.

"I think the future of 50 over cricket will be decided over the next four years.

"The English Premier League Twenty20 competition in 2010 will be the big indicator and show how much Twenty20 cricket we want to see so they need to spice up 50 over cricket before then.

"Additionally, all catches can now be referred to the third umpire.

"When I was a player I used to have the mindset that if I got a bad decision it would even itself up over time. Swings and roundabouts.

"But if the modern player wants every single decision spot on then so be it. And if that is the case then they should refer everything rather than just three decisions.

"It could become very tactical like in tennis when players don't bother referring when they are five love down and save their referrals for the tie-break.

"We will find captains not bothering to appeal when the nine, ten, jack are at the crease - I would make it an all or nothing system.

"I certainly would never like to see Hawkeye used for lbw decisions and other borderline decisions.

"Hawkeye is a great innovation for television audiences but that and technology like Snicko and Hotspot aren't conclusive with bat-pad decisions, gloves down the leg-side and the like. There is too much of a grey area.

"If the ICC were to change one rule and use more technology then I would like the front foot no-ball decisions to be taken out of the hands of the on-field umpire.

"The third and fourth umpires sit around all day not doing much when they could be reviewing the TV pictures for no-ball decisions and let the on-field umpires to concentrate on the business end rather than looking down at the bowler's feet."

Eurosport