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In a first, stop clock in international cricket to speed up play

By, Ahmedabad
Nov 22, 2023 07:35 PM IST

As part of its sustained efforts to speed up the sport, the ICC has introduced a 5-run penalty, if an over doesn’t begin within a minute

Bowl your overs in time. And since paying fines doesn’t pinch your pocket as much as it should, a few more in-match penalties have now been put in place.

India's Jasprit Bumrah asks for DRS against Australia's batter Marnus Labuschagne(PTI)
India's Jasprit Bumrah asks for DRS against Australia's batter Marnus Labuschagne(PTI)

That’s the long and short of what was decided at the International Cricket Council (ICC) Chief Executives meeting and okayed by the board on Tuesday in Ahmedabad.

Cricket’s efforts to hasten play and ensure the paying spectators as well as the viewers’ time is respected have been continuous but painstakingly slow. Now, the endeavor seems to be picking up speed.

In its latest missive to speed up the sport, it was decided that a stop clock will be in place on a trial basis in men’s ODI and T20I cricket from December 2023 to April 2024, to regulate the time taken between overs. “If the bowling team is not ready to bowl the next over within 60 seconds of the previous over being completed, a 5-run penalty will be imposed the third time it happens in an innings,” an ICC media release said.

This will be over and above the in-field penalty, where currently, a team that completes only 48 overs within stipulated time in an ODI and 19 overs within stipulated time in an T20I has to bowl the last two and the final over, respectively, with just four fielders outside the 30 yards circle.

While, the rule has had a limited impact in ODI cricket, in T20s where there are many more close matches, captains have been seen making a conscious effort to speed up.

None of these moves are anywhere as radical as the ones employed by the Caribbean Premier League, where football-style red cards are in place. If the team is behind the required over rate at the start of the 18th over, they are left with four boundary riders, only three if they are slow at the start of the 19th over and if they are culpable at the start of the final over, a fielder - decided by the captain - is red-carded.

In this year’s CPL, Sunil Narine of Trinbago Knight Riders became the first man to be red-carded in the first innings of a match against St Kitts and Nevis. Knight Riders captain Kiron Pollard had expressed his displeasure calling the penalty ‘ridiculous’.

These cards aren’t anything like football – a more physical sport – where fouls have been penalized with send-offs, sometimes in the early minutes of play.

Interestingly, in Test cricket; a format where retaining spectator interest is the most challenging, over rate penalties have recently been made more stringent. England lost 19 and Australia 10 World Test Championship points in this year’s Ashes for slow over rate. In the inaugural WTC cycle, Australia learnt a harsh lesson, missing out on the final, for lost points from slow over rate, towards the end of their campaign.

KEEPING THE STOP CLOCK

It’s one thing having a stop clock, another officiating it. In tennis for example, there’s a point penalty in place for not serving within 25 seconds between points. But the chair umpire was accused of being lenient towards Novak Djokovic in the recent Wimbledon final against Carlos Alcaraz.

Why look at tennis, cricket courted controversy in the just concluded ODI World Cup too, where the Sri Lankan camp was unhappy at Angelo Mathews being declared ‘timed out’ following an appeal from the Bangladesh side. Under the new rules, a batter has two and not three minutes as before, to take strike after a wicket falls. But the time clock belongs to the officials. Matthews clearly disagreed and had posted his version of the timer on social media, in protest.

U19 WC moves to South Africa

Another ICC board decision was to move the 2024 U19 World Cup from Sri Lanka to South Africa, as the suspension on Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), for government interference, stays.

New gender eligibility regulations for the international game have also been introduced to protect the integrity of the women’s game.

"The new policy is based on the following principles (in order of priority), protection of the integrity of the women’s game, safety, fairness and inclusion, and this means any Male to Female participants who have been through any form of male puberty will not be eligible to participate in the international women’s game regardless of any surgery or gender reassignment treatment they may have undertaken," said the statement.

The regulations will be reviewed within two years.

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