Cricket will test stop clocks in ODIs and T20Is to speed up play.

By Maggie On Nov 22, 2023

To accelerate the game, the International Cricket Council announced Tuesday that it will test stop timers between overs in men’s one-day and Twenty20 internationals.

The decision’s implementation will be evaluated between December and April. It was sanctioned following an ICC board meeting in Ahmedabad, India. Cricket will test stop clocks in ODIs and T20Is to speed up play.

If the bowling team does not prepare the next over within sixty seconds of the previous over’s conclusion, a penalty of five runs will be assessed for the third occurrence within an innings.

“The clock will regulate the duration of time between overs,” the ICC said. A perennial concern in limited-over cricket has been slow-over rates; last year, the International Cricket Council (ICC) implemented penalties in both men’s and women’s cricket.

If the fielding team fails to commence the final over within the designated time, they incur a one-fielder penalty from beyond the 30-yard circle.

This exceeds the penalties teams must pay for exceeding rates slowly.

Stop timers are implemented in tennis, among other sports, to assist in the acceleration of games.

Following the dismissal of Sri Lanka’s Angelo Mathews, the first batsman to be “timed out” in an international match during the recently concluded World Cup, accelerating play in cricket dominated the news.

Mathews was ruled out within two minutes of the group match between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh for failing to take a strike.

Mathews tried to assert that an issue with his helmet harness precluded him from playing, but the umpires were compelled to uphold their ruling when Bangladesh declined to retract their appeal.

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