Ashes 2023: ICC’s 'tough' rule on slow over-rate triggers debate

Nine. That’s the number of points credited to England after their drawn 2-2 Ashes series against Australia, a series they salvaged after being 0-2 down after the first two matches.

In actuality, England earned 28 points – the same as Australia – thanks to two complements of 12 points apiece for their victories, and four points by virtue of a draw in the fourth Test in Manchester. Yet, for all their exertions and their unwavering faith in ‘Bazball’, they now have only less than a third of the points they accrued, thanks to poor over rates that come with both financial and more tangible cricketing penalties after being deemed to be 19 overs short at the end of the series.

Australia ended up with better returns, but only by comparison. As opposed to their opponents, they were 10 overs short at the conclusion of the five-Test series and therefore were docked 10 points, which means they now have 18 points despite having amassed 28 points.

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Not new for Aussies

Confusing? Possibly, if one isn’t aware of the sanctions for not bowling one’s overs within the stipulated time, despite allowances made for stoppages such as the fall of a wicket, drinks breaks, the time taken for arriving at decisions once the teams invoke the Decision Review System (DRS) and for other interruptions such as movement in front of and atop the sightscreens, and for injuries sustained by players.

Australia have had first-hand experience of the pitfalls of not bowling their overs in time. During the inaugural World Test Championship cycle straddling 2019 and 2021, they missed out on a place in the final by the proverbial hair’s breadth, finishing 0.3 percentage points behind New Zealand only because they were docked four points behind for being two overs short in the Melbourne Test against India in December 2020. Immediately after it was confirmed that Australia’s misfortune had earned the Kiwis a shot at India in the final against India in Southampton – a match they won to be crowned the first WTC winners – then Aussie coach Justin Langer acknowledged his side’s tardiness by saying, “Now, that’s really slack on our behalf.”

Contrast that with what Usman Khawaja, the Australian opener, had to state publicly at the end of the latest Ashes, which concluded last week. Having taken it upon himself to take on the ICC for its decision-making, Khawaja tweeted – or is it X-ed now? – “Don’t even get the chance to bowl in the second innings at Manchester due to 2 days of rain and @ICC still issue fines and take 10 WTC points off us for slow over rates! That makes a lot of sense…”

Sarcasm isn’t a good look when one is afoul of the rules. Like Australia – and England – unambiguously were. There is a reason why the rules are in place, and when one doesn’t adhere to them, there are consequences as there should be. The International Cricket Council (ICC) has mechanisms in place to tackle unacceptable on-field behaviour from players; it will be interesting to see if they haul up Khawaja for his comments which are both ill-advised and ignorant, and cock a direct snook at the sport’s governing body.

Also read: Bairstow dismissal: UK PM Rishi Sunak slams Australia for breaching ‘spirit of cricket’

Monetary sanction

Last month, at a meeting of the chief executives of the ICC in Durban, a great deal of leniency was shown to teams not sticking to the over rate requirements at the behest of several ‘lesser’ Test-playing nations with a genuine axe to grind. In the past, as Australia found out the hard way in the 2091-21 cycle, teams were penalised two points and fined 20% of their match fee for every over short.

The financially less well-endowed countries – which is most of the 12 Test-playing teams – appealed to the ICC to reconsider the monetary sanction because their players ended up with zero match fees if they were deemed to have been five overs behind the acceptable level. To play for four or five days and have no match fees to show for the efforts isn’t ideal, so the ICC decided to reduce the penalty to 5% of the match fee for each over short, capped at a maximum of 50%. The points penalty remained at one; after all, there had to be a realistic and tangible sanction, not just a token slap on the wrist.

Under the rules as they exist, teams are expected to bowl 90 overs in the six-hour passage of play each day, which translates to 15 overs per hour. Allowances are in place for stoppages – two minutes for the fall of each wicket, four minutes each for the three designated drinks intervals every day. Around all these and other generous exemptions, teams are expected to stick to the norms, but more often than not, even after requisitioning the extra 30 minutes each day to ensure the 90 overs are sent down, sides often finish well short of the requirements.

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Proliferation of pace bowlers

The argument that, especially in the SENA – South Africa, England, New Zealand, Australia – countries where pitches encourage the proliferation of pace bowlers and therefore allegedly an inevitable slower over-rate, it is difficult to stick to 15 overs per hour is both facetious and disrespectful of a glorious past when 16 or 17 eight-ball overs was the norm. If, in the past, teams could send down between 128 and 136 deliveries in 60 minutes almost without fail, why can’t they bowl 90 in this day and age? Is it because of workload management which often restricts them to 24 or 30 balls per net session? Or is it due to the fact that the players believe they are bigger than the rules in place?

There is one school of thought which believes that if an outright result is achieved within five days, teams should be absolved of tardiness. How would you justify that to a paying spectator, who has bought a ticket believing that he will get to watch 90 six-ball overs but is forced to settle for far less? The ticket-buyer is supposed to be the biggest stakeholder of the sport, yet not a thought is given to the fact that he is being short-changed for whatever reason.

There was a time in the 1980s and 1990s when West Indies were castigated for bowing no more than 12 overs an hour, even though their four-pronged pace attack ensured that hardly any match went into day five. The same entities that once disparaged the Caribbean kings are now singing a diametrically opposite tune. What is it they said about people in glass houses and throwing stones?