ICC Scraps Boundary-Count Rule, Introduces New Rule For Tied Games

The dramatic end to this year’s World Cup final has prompted the International Cricket Council (ICC) to bring a change in their rule books. The thrilling final between hosts and eventual winners England and New Zealand was marred with the way the game was decided. Both the teams finished with the same score at the end of their respective 50 overs.

Even the super overs could not decide a winner. In the end, England walked away with the World Cup for hitting more number of boundaries than New Zealand. The ICC has now put an end to boundary-count as a way of deciding knockout games. The governing body of the game took the decision after its board meeting in Dubai on Monday.

The ICC resolved that in semi-finals and finals in future world tournaments, more Super Overs will be played if the teams score the same number of runs in their Super Overs. Had the rule been in place for this year’s World Cup, England and New Zealand would have played another over to decide the winner.

An ICC statement said that the change was “in keeping with the basic principle of scoring more runs than the opponent to win”. The statement further added that both its cricket committee and the chief executives’ committee agreed the Super Over represented an “exciting and engaging conclusion” to a game.

The Super Over will also now be in place for every game in both 20-over and 50-over World Cups, having previously only applied in the knockout stages. In the group stages of a tournament, if a Super Over is tied then the match result will be logged as a tie. Recently, the Big Bash League had also ditched the boundary-count rule to make way for multiple Super Overs rule.

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