Cricket officials have, for a long, attempted to find the ideal solution to the annoying over-rate issue that has been extensive across levels and formats. Meanwhile, Financial penalties and the suspension of captains did not make to difference.
However, there is a chance to make up for a lost time in a five-day game supposed to encompass 450 overs. Again, most Tests are ending well within the extent making it hardly inspiring when a Twenty20 game, is planned to last three hours and 10 minutes, the 20-minute break included.
Further, if there is poor advertising for the sport, it is a game starting at 8 pm local time and dragging on to the subsequent day even in the absence of any interval from the elements. The spectators do not complain because a late finish always points to a thrilling encounter, but that can not be the only factor in deliberation. It speaks to a certain insult to the rules and regulations if players proceed to cross the line, secure in the knowledge that whatever fines are slapped on them make nary a difference to their lifestyle.
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The requirement to address this problem, at least in the 20-over format to start with, the International Cricket Council brought on the knowledge of the England and Wales Cricket Board to submit a crucial rule change at the start of the year that brings about instant cricketing punishment for tarrying on the field.
However, in the inaugural version of the otherwise unremarkable The Hundred, the ECB came up with the idea of an extra fielder from the deep having to perforce come inside the 30-yard circle for the number of overs that haven’t been completed by the stipulated time after all allowances have been taken into consideration.
The ICC was so taken up by the concept that, in January this year, it immediately embraced it in both men’s and women’s Twenty20 Internationals. Each 20-over innings is due to last 85 minutes, with adequate allowances being made for injuries, the use of DRS following player referrals, and umpire referrals for run-outs and stumpings, as well as for any other stoppages such as sight screen malfunction and their class.
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