Drag over my soapbox Roarers, because the summer’s bone of contention has already emerged.
The International Cricket Council’s attempts to curb slow over rates are a classic case of having plenty of evidence to suggest something is being done, while in reality the problem is as bad as it’s always been.
India, quite miraculously, had managed to start the 90th over of Day 1 yesterday when they took the wicket of Brad Haddin. Considering what might have been when David Warner and Michael Clarke were scoring freely, India’s late fight back to take 3/9 in the last 20 minutes was rather impressive.
>>FOLLOW THE LIVE BLOG OF DAY TWO
But their over rate in the first two sessions of the Test was glacial.
By tea, Australia were belting along at 2/238 and at more than 4.7 runs per over, but to that point of the day, India had only bowled 50 overs. Their hourly rates across the first two sessions of the series were 11, 13, 13, and 13 again.
For information, the current ICC Standard Test Match Playing Conditions states under section 16.3, ‘Minimum Over Rates’:
“The minimum over rate to be achieved in Test Matches will be 15 overs per hour.”
Knowing how far behind the over rate his side was, Indian stand-in captain Virat Kohli was forced to bowl the part-time offies of Murali Vijay in tandem with debutant leggie Karn Sharma for 13 overs after the break before finally bringing pace spearhead Ishant Sharma back into the attack.
Kohli kept a spinner on at one end until the delayed drinks break – because overtime had already been declared a requirement by tea – and he did manage to claw back some ground, getting through 23 overs in the hour-and-a-quarter to the finals drinks break of the day.
That left 17 overs for the last 75 minutes of the day, and with Vijay and Karn Sharma back on in tandem for another five overs prior to taking the new ball, Kohli had managed to dig himself out of the hole.
There was a wonderful coincidence in the middle of all this, too; James Brayshaw revealed the shallowness of his Indian player research on the Channel Nine coverage by declaring Indian wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha – in just his third Test – wouldn’t have had the pleasure of playing at the Adelaide Oval before.
A subtle note from the Nine statistician caused Brayshaw to admit that Saha’s last Test was in fact in Adelaide during India’s last Australian tour in 2011/2012, where he had to deputise for MS Dhoni after the regular skipper was suspended for… wait for it… slow over rates!
I’m not going to go into detail about what’s said regarding over rates in the Playing Conditions, or the ‘Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel’, mainly because the wording is ridiculously confusing.
At one point in Appendix 2 of the Code of Conduct, which deals with the calculation of over rates and any punishment thereafter, it seems to say that a third Minor Over Rate Offence within the same format (i.e. Test, ODI, or Twenty20cricket) within a 12-month period will be treated as a first offence.
And I sincerely hope I’ve misread that completely – you can check out the Standard Test Match Playing Conditions, and the Code of Conduct.
What gets my goat about all this is the Playing Conditions stating that the “actual over rate will be calculated at the end of the match by the umpires and will be the average rate which is achieved by the fielding team across both of the batting team’s innings.”
And underneath this statement are all kind of allowances for the fielding side, including time taken to attend to injuries – such as Clarke’s back flare-up yesterday – and the effective time of taking wickets.
In effect, it means that as long as the over rates across both innings as calculated at the end of the Test meet the requirement of 15 overs per hour give or take, it matters not if only 70 over are bowled on Day 1 and 120 are bowled on Day 3.
Once again, this is international cricket taking the paying public for suckers. Try telling the people who paid $150 to watch 70 overs crawl by on the first day that they got their full value for money. And it’s exactly the same for advertisers paying large amounts expecting x number of ads at the end of every over in a day’s play.
A quick search on the ICC website shows six different instances of international teams being penalised for slow over rates in 2013 alone. Curiously, the search results didn’t include 2014, and England skipper Alastair Cook was just last week forced to sit out the fourth ODI against Sri Lanka for a second over-rate penalty in the last 12 months.
England were pinged against India earlier this year and in addition to the one-game ban, Cook was fined 20 per cent of his match fee, while the rest of his team were fined 10 per cent too.
But fines and suspensions clearly aren’t working. I’ve already mentioned Dhoni, and I can recall Sourav Ganguly being suspended from both Tests and ODIs because of over rates too. Ricky Ponting may have even fallen foul as well, and there would be many more examples.
So to repeat something I’ve said on The Roar a lot in my time, and something that Expert colleague and former Test bowler Jason Gillespie agreed a fortnight ago was “a good idea”, there is one simple way for the ICC to properly address this long-running issue.
Penalise teams on the scoreboard. The only way teams will properly learn the lesson of their tardiness is to be penalised x runs per over they’re behind the required rate.
And forget making the calculations at the end of the Test; do it at the end of the bowling innings so that the penalties are applied immediately. If a team is three overs behind the rate at the end of an innings – even after all the allowances are considered – then add 15 or however many runs to their target instantly.
The impact will be direct, and even more so if the sluggish team happens to lose that game by less than the penalty applied.
The moment a team loses a hard-fought series by virtue of slow over-rates will be the day the problem disappears. Pity the first captain to lose a World Cup final, or the Ashes because of run rates.
But the problem would be solved.
mds1970
Roar Guru
Yes it was hot, but today's over rate was an absolute disgrace. Half an hour added on, but they still only got 83 overs in - and the paying fans are short-changed. It shouldn't be hard to bowl 90 overs in 6 hours. The amount of dawdling and filibustering that goes on when they should be getting on with the game is an absolute disgrace.
The Bear
Guest
So Australia bowling at 12.8 overs an hour in the first test at the gabba, any comments people?
Andy_Roo
Roar Guru
Have just checked the Australian over rate for the first two hours of the Indian innings.25 Overs bowled with no significant breaks in play. Not good enough, but I don't think penalty runs is the answer. Double the fines.
Kev
Guest
Taking fielders out or adding runs may seem over the top but nothing else has worked so far. You need a punishment that will change behaviour.
anchorman
Guest
Good point about 2005. How come when they were bowling 8 ball overs the old times could get through a 100 a day? From memory, when the Windies were in full swing here one year, they owed the ACB something like$70,000 for slow over rates. The CA board is still waiting for the money I think. All countries are as bad as each other as well. Also had to laugh at the fact that Dizzy Gillespie wrote a similar article a few weeks ago. They were bowling slow over rates even when he was playing and the Aussies were as well. So Dizzy may be should have taken that up when he was playing. Or maybe he didn't want his hip pocket hit by a fine. LOL.
Paul Nicholls
Roar Guru
It all started going downhill when Kerry Packer changed the 8 ball over in Australia to get more add breaks in.
Paul Nicholls
Roar Guru
Brett I love your idea in theory BUT .. I will provide a recent example that might make you rethink. Remember the Ashes test a few years back (Old Trafford? 2005?) - anyway the last day was utterly absorbing. Australia got to within about 2 runs of the total when Kaspa was caught down the legside. So many people rated this as one of the greatest tests ever and it single-handedly re-awoke the cricketing heritage of the UK. People were so excited, celebrating in the streets, drinking champagne from dr. martens, hugging strangers, I assume some babies were even conceived... can you imagine say half an hour later it was announced that because of the slow over rates, a recalculation was made and England had 3 runs deducted meaning that Australia won the match! Cricket would then become the laughing stock of world sport. I really believe that retro. run penalties could really change the fabric of the game for the worst. Let's put the captains in stocks and throw rotten fruit at them or a bit of jail time but please no run penalties!
Andy_Roo
Roar Guru
I don't agree with adding runs on as a penalty but I do think more needs to be done to fix the problem of slow over rates. Double the fines and calculate the over rates per innings, per day or even per session.
Ronan O'Connell
Expert
Nice piece Brett. It's funny how during every major Test series this issue raises its munted head yet the ICC never takes it on.
Brett McKay
Expert
27 overs a session certainly seems reasonable Chris..
Brains of a bimbo (Atgm)
Guest
@spruce mate i dont want them to reduce it to 85 overs.if a team is unable to bowl 90 in a day then 10-15 % of their match fees shud be deducted.if they do it for all 2-3 days theyre in the field bowlin then the captain shud be banned for the next test and all the players including captain shud be fined 50-70% match fee.runs penelty is takin it too far imo... @mckay he bowled him during 70-80 over mark which is quite normal for a captain to do.you know to give rest to the main bowlers before the new ball thing....
Brett McKay
Expert
I've said several times on this thread that the batting team are often at fault B&A, and also, that the existing allowances for the fielding team - one of which being the batting team wasting time - should also remain in place.
Ball'n'all
Guest
What if the batting team are responsible for slowing down the over rate down, like the english out here last summer - lengthy mid pitch conferences, physio out every few overs, fresh gloves, gloves and helmets off every over, batsmen not ready when the bowler is ready etc. Why should a batting team get rewarded for these time wasting behaviours?
Shouts Chen
Guest
I'd think that this would be a good idea for the ICC to penalise the cricket team for slow over rates.
Ball'n'all
Guest
agree ds. By arbitraily punishing only one team, when both teams can influence the over rate, this suggestion provides an incentive for the batting team to slow the over rate if it suits them. Weren't we complaining about the english batsmen slowing things down when they were copping a thrashing out here last season? Imagine the complaints if they gained a run benefit because of it. This is typical batsman thinking.... it's always the bowlers fault.
Junior Coach
Guest
Over rates are really a blight on Test Match cricket but I think I would still firmly place the blame on the fielding side AND the umpires. Of course my more cynical side would say that slow over rates are good for the advertisers revenue . The onus is on the batsman to be ready to face the delivery as soon as the bowler is ready to approach the wicket-if this is not being enforced then it is plainly the umpires fault- Not he bowling side, as an ex dribbly medium pacer I really used to get the @#@$%% if the batsman wasn't ready to face up and would complain long and hard to the umpire to do his job! What I find absolutely ridiculous in modern cricket is the long, mid or end of over "tactical" conversations that most fielding teams seem to engage in every single over , for crying out loud at higher levels , especially international levels don't these guys have detailed , preemptive bowling and field setting plans for every single batsman under the sun- cricket aint that complicated , if the bowler isn't bowling to his plan , take him off and tell him off!! Rant over , will return to cave and await the second coming of Bill O Reilly.
spruce moose
Guest
Concerningly, only two months ago they extended the time for a t20 innings to 90 mins Instead of tackling the problem head on, they conceded defeat.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
The fact that India threw in so much spin in the last session to try and get the overs in suggests that the existing penalties are enough of a deterrent to change behaivour. It effectively has cost India in this game. At a time when Marsh came to the crease and you probably want your main strikers on, they were bowling lots of part-time spin to try and get through the overs. That's a significant penalty right there that they've brought on themselves by the slow over rates and having to make them up. If you want to stop having such slow sessions, then they could make minimum overs in a session requirements as well as in the day. So, not only 90 in a day, but you have to get at least 27 in each session or the same sorts of penalties apply. That way they can't just go slow early and make up for it in the last session.
Brett McKay
Expert
Darwin, as I say below to Spiro, I'm not advocating that any current allowances be removed, including the allowance for the batting team wasting time.
Brett McKay
Expert
By 'fabric of the game' SFL, I mean two batsmen taking on 1 bowler and ten fielders, the very backbone of the game. You might remember, when T20 cricket was first introduced, 6-run penaties could be applied if the bowling team didn't start the 20th other inside 85 minutes. It worked - I experienced it first hand. Disappointingly, it doesn't appear to be part of the playing conditions any more..