Stop clock, short run penalty, new rule for boundary catches: ICC announces major changes for Tests and white-ball cricket

The International Cricket Council has announced several changes to the playing conditions across formats, following the recommendations of its Cricket Committee, headed by former India captain Sourav Ganguly.

The new playing conditions commenced with the first match of the new WTC on June 17, played between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The new playing conditions for ODIs and T20Is will commence during the same Sri Lanka against Bangladesh series beginning July 2 and 10 respectively.

The Indian Express breaks down the new changes:

Stop clock

It has been prevalent in white-ball cricket for a while and it has been introduced into Test cricket as well. To improve the over-rates, bowling teams must now be ready to bowl the first ball of a new over 60 seconds after the previous one. If teams don’t compile, umpires will give two warnings, and if they fail for the third time in an innings, five runs will be awarded to the opposition. The two warnings will reset to zero after the completion of 80 overs and any future blocks of 80 overs.

Story continues below this ad

Tweak in the number of balls

With spinners struggling to make enough impact in ODIs and fielding restrictions loaded heavily in favour of batsmen, to lend more balance the ICC has made a slight tweak to the number of balls that would be used. While all ODIs will begin with two new balls, from now on after the completion of 34 overs, the bowling team can choose one of the two for the remaining 16 overs. Apart from possibly aiding reverse-swing, batsmen might struggle to score off a softer ball and even spinners could relish bowling in the end.

Deliberate short runs

In case of batsmen attempting a deliberate short run, the fielding team now gets awarded five runs as a penalty. Moving forward, additionally, if the umpires find there was a deliberate short run, they will hand the fielding team the opportunity to decide which of the two batsmen in the middle they want to bowl to for the next delivery.

Concussion protocols

In the past, teams — in particular home teams — have enjoyed the luxury of choosing replacements from a bigger pool. From now on, teams have to nominate potential replacement players before the start of the match in this order: one wicketkeeper, one batter, one seam bowler, one spin bowler, one all-rounder. Exceptions can be made where a team can even nominate a batsman in place of a wicketkeeper or more than two all-rounders. It would be up to the match referee to decide if it is a like-for-like replacement or not.

Apart from this, any player who has been concussed during a match can’t feature in a game for a minimum of seven days, a recommendation put in place by the ICC’s medical advisory committee.

Story continues below this ad

Boundary catches

Changes to the playing conditions now require a fielder who makes airborne contact with the ball beyond the boundary to then land and remain inside the boundary. A fielder, after making their first contact with the ball subsequently leaves the field of play, can only make contact with the ball once more while airborne beyond the boundary. Having done so, they must land and remain wholly within the boundary. This applies even if another player completes the fielding.

Powerplay

In case of rain curtailed fixtures, the length of the powerplay will now be rounded off to the nearest ball instead of to the nearest over in case of a reduction in the overall number of overs. It means when the game is shortened the powerplay can end in the middle of an over as long as it completes 30 per cent of the total innings.

Leg-side wide

At present, any delivery that goes down the leg-side of a batsman’s stance is deemed a wide delivery. To give bowlers more leniency when a batsman is moving around before the ball is delivered, a new marker will be in place. “The position of the batsman’s legs at the point of delivery will now be used as the reference point for a wide, even if the batsman subsequently moves across to the off side. A ball that passes the popping crease between the leg stump and the protected area marker not being called a wide,” the ICC said.

Click here to read article