5th Test Over Rates

Over Rates in 5th Test:

Day One, morning: England 14.4
Day One, afternoon: England 14.4
Day One, evening: England 14.0

Day Two, afternoon: England 12.5
Day Two, evening: England 11.3, Australia 14.4

Day Three, morning: Australia 12.8
Day Three, afternoon: Australia 14.9
Day Three, evening: Australia 13.9

Day Five, morning: Australia 13.2
Day Five, afternoon: Australia 13.9, England 12.7
Day Five, evening: Australia 12.6

So neither team,for a single session, managed to achieve the target of 15 hours per hour. England's gamesmanship, especially on Day Two perverted the spirit of cricket. What can be done about this blight on the game?

Run penalties and suspensions.

Both are already available to umps and refs.

A yellow card. Send someone off & reduce the fielding team to ten players for a number of overs.

Obviously it would need to be monitored to make sure the batting team isn't partly responsible for the slow over rates.

Automatic suspension of captain.

Under the current interpretation of the rules what would Cook need to do to be suspended or docked runs? It seems on the second day he stretched the rules beyond acceptability....

In the past they seem to have been ready to fine or even suspend captains for ODI breaches. It should be more heavily applied to the test arena. The players run in between overs to bowl them within the time frame in T20s which seems to suggest that all this slowing down is deliberate and smacks of gamesmanship. As soon as the ICI (don't hold your breath), started meting out penalties, expect the caper to stop.

Ban India

WideWally wrote:A yellow card. Send someone off & reduce the fielding team to ten players for a number of overs.

Obviously it would need to be monitored to make sure the batting team isn't partly responsible for the slow over rates.

Indeed, this is one of the grey areas that would make enforcement tricky. Trott on his own, when in full George Brown cry, could earn a yellow card for any opposition.

There are other factors that would have to be borne in mind:

Drinks breaks - which sometimes seem to have become hellishly long

DRS - which again seems to take an age sometimes

Injury/niggle of bowler or batsman, also equipment malfunctions

Switch to helmet or cap for batsman or fielder

Field changes, also changes entailed by switches to bowling over or round the wicket and notifications, or LHB/RHB switch

Bowlers' footmarks discussion and sometimes sawdust/tamping/levelling, also discussions led by umpires into irregularities (e.g. running on pitch)

Sightscreen adjustments, blinding lights or idiots standing up/waving behind the bowler's arm

(There are probably others!)


You might think these are just excuses, or matters of a couple of seconds. But combine a couple of these and use your stopwatch in the next Test, you'll see that some hours are eaten into, even without evident gamesmanship from either side.

Have a match clock which is stopped for all of the above, other than those under the control of the fielding side (if you want a helmet available have it out there and take the risk of five byes). Assess the over rate against that clock, and make it prominent on the scoreboards.

Yes, ideally the bowlers should be bowling 17 overs an hour, with the factors Pete's listed i'll allow them to drop to 15.

Simply jogging into position between overs like they do in ODI's would save an awful lot of time.

As we've seen on Days 2 & 5, the captains are able to control over rate quite easily and can drop from a moribund 14 to an almost deathly 12 on demand.

I'd certainly trial a delivery clock, starting off in T20 to see how it works - a bit like say a jump or throw attempt in athletics, where if the ball isn't delivered or run-up started by the time the clock reaches zero, it's a no-ball (and free hit in the short format).

An aborted run-up would be an automatic no-ball, and if the batsman pulls away it's up to the umpire's discretion whether to call a dead ball or allow a free bowl at the stumps.

The maintenance of an acceptable over rate is the responsibility of the fielding captain. His and his alone. The third umpire can make allowances for for DRS, injuries etc. If the over rate over the entirety of a match falls below a level deemed to be acceptable, the captain is automatically suspended for the following match.

Obviously, the BCCI will object.

One match suspension for the captain upon failure to meet the minimum over rates, in the same format as the offence was committed. Then a sliding scale for repeat offenders; two match ban for a second offence, three match ban for a third offence. Hence captains Cook and Clarke would be enjoying the 1st Ashes Test from the stand. That'd teach them.

Would teams try to get round it by naming an expendable debutant as the "nominal" captain?

beamer wrote:Would teams try to get round it by naming an expendable debutant as the "nominal" captain?

They'd have to name an expendable debutant every match, or else plan for matches in which they're going to be deliberately slow ... which is impractical. And, in all matches, only the de facto captain should be treated as the captain, whether he is nominated or not. I thought that provision already existed for this anyway after some subcontinent team or other tried to weasel their way out of something or other?

What, by naming someone as captain who was clearly not actually performing the role?

I remember one Pakistan captain I think trying to use the excuse of no-balls and wides after getting fined/banned for slow over rates. The response was "tell your bowlers not to bowl no-balls and wides then"... he had a point though, because they are actual cricket rather than delays in play, even if they don't count as legitimate deliveries!

We could nominate Jimmy Taylor as captain and get him banned for life.

Yeah, if you're captaining Scott Boswell you get an exception.

Warnie has already tried it .....


Cricket Australia has today advised that Melbourne Stars captain Shane Warne has been fined $5000 for breaching the CA Code of Behaviour.

Warne was found guilty of breaching Rule 5: Laws of Cricket and Spirit of the Game by CA Commissioner Arthur Lodge.

For the KFC T20 Big Bash League BIG SEMI FINAL last Wednesday night, James Faulkner was listed on the Melbourne Stars team sheet as captain and took part in the coin toss with Perth Scorchers captain Simon Katich.

On 5 December 2012, KFC T20 Big Bash League teams were sent a Memo by Cricket Australia. Under the heading “Over Rates”, the Memo stated that “If a team’s official captain is selected but not named as captain, this will be considered against the Spirit of Cricket and may attract a Code of Behaviour charge.”

Warne had previously been issued with one strike for a slow over rate violation, with a second strike this season resulting in an automatic one-match suspension.

Warne was not present at the hearing. He was represented by Melbourne Stars CEO Clint Cooper and team manager Ben Robertson.
- See more at: http://www.bigbash.com.au/news-and-videos/2013/01/21/warne-found-guilty#sthash.ZRnDbNRy.dpuf

And Jayawardene did it without sanction when he had an over rate issue in the 2020 world cup.

Gary 111 wrote:Yeah, if you're captaining Scott Boswell you get an exception.

Only big stage bowling meltdown that comes to mind that outdoes Kerrigan...

beamer wrote:

Gary 111 wrote:Yeah, if you're captaining Scott Boswell you get an exception.

Only big stage bowling meltdown that comes to mind that outdoes Kerrigan...

Bryce McGain.

How soon we forget.

at least McGain was bowling to class batsmen...Kerrigan was bowling to schoolgirl...

taips you are too young remember J Watkins...who at one stage threatened to bowl the infinite over as he could not land them near the pitch

That's basically what happened to Boswell, he bowled something like eight wides in an over opening the bowling for Leics I think it was, in a one-day county final at Lord's in the 90s. I don't think he ever played a game of county cricket again.

beamer wrote:That's basically what happened to Boswell, he bowled something like eight wides in an over opening the bowling for Leics I think it was, in a one-day county final at Lord's in the 90s. I don't think he ever played a game of county cricket again.

Yeah, it was a one-day final in front of a full house at Lords. None of his team mates went up to him to console him or give him an encouraging pat on the shoulder - qunts. I have a visceral dislike of Leics CCC due to that - even outweighing my inborn hate of anything connected to that county located to the north east of Worcestershire.