ICC To Introduce Stop Clock In White-Ball Cricket Along With New Over-Rate Penalty

The International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Chief Executives’ Committee (CEC) will be introducing a stop clock on a trial basis in men’s ODI and T20I cricket. It’ll feature in the games from December 2023 to April 2024 to calculate the amount of time taken between overs.

Of late there have been a lot of talks about the team taking time to complete their full quota of overs. The games in the recent past have been consuming a lot of time to finish. But the recent change in the laws might help to improve it.

If the fielding team will not be ready to bowl the next over within 60 seconds of the previous over being completed, there’ll be a penalty for it. For the first two times, a warning will be given to the team. However, if it happens for the third time then a 5-run penalty will be imposed.

Currently, if the teams are not able to complete their desired overs on time then teams are forced to bring in one extra fielder inside the circle. It remains to be seen how introducing of stop clock works. It’s fair to say that it can bring a massive change to the game and we can witness the timed completion of games.

ICC to accelerate development of female match officials; Approves changes to the pitch and outfield monitoring regulations

Apart from introducing a stop clock feature in the game, ICC also approved changes to the pitch and outfield monitoring regulations. The change also included simplification of the criteria against which a pitch is assessed. The ICC also increased the threshold for when a venue can have its international status removed from five demerit points to six demerit points over five years.

The Chief Executives’ Committee (CEC) of ICC also put forward the plan for the development of female match officials. They will be giving equal match day pay to both ICC men and women umpires and will ensure that there is one neutral umpire in every International Cricket Council (ICC) Women’s Championship series from January 2024.