Brendon McCullum's suspension was ridiculously harsh

Ah self praise, the best recommendation of all...

Damn right I do. It's an unearthed goldmine of captaincy genius here in Brisbane. I have a fabulously wicked sense of humour when it's original or funny. The old "how many games have you played for Australia" argument is neither. I assume from your Steketee jibe he did alright last night did he? Coming into this game he had bowled 10 overs, 1/137. At this stage I'd be happy calling last night an aberration rather than the norm.

Ah Dexter, you've made the mistake of thinking Paul D wouldn't know, however as an umpire in Brisbane cricket (not sure what grades or comp) he actually gets to see many captains who could give Brendon a lesson or two. You mark my words. And he recently dismissed Steketee as being pretty much useless so you can see he's a decent judge. Also you've made the mistake of thinking he may have a sense of humour. Twice wrong...

Definitely a fine would have done - the biggest issue I have is that the Heat's game against the Stars is going to be pretty one sided. With McCullum and Lynn out I can't see them getting near the stars - and the fans want to see the big gun playing.

I'd have hit Starc for six third ball back over his head instead of getting bowled, posted 400 and bowled Australia out for 80 You stupid flog

Exactly. Its Test match cricket where over rates need to be improved, when we are crying out for more entertainment in a days play. When was the last time anyone watching a T20 game was whinging about the over rate and the slow play?? They spend 5 minutes looking at a replay to see if it was a 4 or a 6, and then find it OK to suspend one of the best players in the game for being 5 minutes over the limit. Give me a break.

thank you.

Yes if I was picking an international XI I think I would def take you as captain instead of stupid old B-Mac, who obviously has no idea. You would have got NZ to a World Cup final....???

Yes but Chris, if you had the spinners available that MS did, you would use them early as well, to allow that time up the sleeve. Not every captain has that advantage, so its an odd comparison.

yeah it's absolutely ridiculous. The best T20 innings to watch DO take longer than average; because you have runs, wickets and a captain who's thinking about the field settings every ball. If you want it to be over in an allotted time then 0/85 from 20 overs would be perfect. The Big Bash blurs the line between being a sport and being a manufactured television program a bit too much imo

I think this was a most wonderful penalty. Now, if only we could get some of these penalties enforced at Test level we'd have a far better product. I know I am far from the only one that wonders why (even with 30 mins of obligatory overtime) that Test teams are unable to get through 90 overs in the day. Giving teams 6.5 hours and then having them fail to get through their allocation is disgraceful. Frankly, penalties should be imposed if the team can't get through the 90 overs in the allotted 6 hours with the overtime being exactly that ... purely there to make up for work that should have been done in normal hours. The irony of the above situation is that when a bowling team is running out of overs on the final day, chasing a win, suddenly the over rate improves out of sight ... 100 overs in a day? No worries! Oh, you mean on the first day ... nah mate, just not possible.

Rules hey! Not very well thought out though are they ? Costs bums on seat, a severe criticism of an already archaic administrative body, reduces TV audience etc etc etc. It's becoming a joke almost as if the administrators are saying hey! The people come to see us enforce our rules not too watch cricket. I just wish they would suspends the "jerk" commentator for ever.

It's obviously not a disadvantage to take a wicket, but to include the time it takes for a new batsman to take strike is silly rule, even if it doesn't take as long in T20's as it does in Test Matches. I'm fine with McCullum being suspended, he was on a warning and still went over the limit. I'm just pointing out what I feel is a flawed rule.

So taking wickets is a disadvantage. I've heard it all now.

Part of the problem I think was that they replaced Badree with Mills – when you drop a spinner and replace him with a fast bowler it’s inevitable that the overs are going to take a bit longer. Badree’s ability to bowl tight in the powerplay meant less time retrieving the ball from the fence – he didn’t bowl beamers over the batsman’s head for starters, and that’s before you even get into the shorter run-ups etc. McCullum strikes me as someone who doesn’t have great match awareness anyway. Between blazing away and throwing out his wicket, not keeping track of time, bringing on Craig to bowl to Starc with a broken foot in the Adelaide day/night test rather than bowling a quick – I think some of the comments about him being a tactical genius are way overblown. He’s just another average skipper with a good eye and a good capacity for writing his own PR. I’m not surprised at all he got himself suspended and can only echo comments above that he knew the rules and should have ensured he kept within the margins.

T20 is about moving quickly. They have a shorter allowance for how long batsmen can take to get to the middle, which is why batsmen sit in a dugout at the side and all sorts of things. The captain getting suspended is actually a pretty standard punishment for repeated slow over rate offences in lots of different forms of cricket because ultimately it's the captains responsibility to look keep his team moving through the overs at a reasonable rate. Other teams don't seem to have a problem getting through their overs. I get that people want to see McCullum playing, especially with Chris Lynn missing, but this is one of the big issues in sport where people are happy to wave penalties against players they like watching playing. If Adam Voges, Shane Watson, Ben Rohrer, had been suspended for slow over rates hardly anyone would have batted an eyelid. B.Mac needs to change some things about how he captains his team to get through overs quicker. I like something I heard from/about M.S. Dhoni once describing how he tended to be really good at getting through overs quickly in the first half of an innings which then meant he had some time up his sleeve to take more time at the end of the innings when required. If you are regularly struggling to get your overs in, then you need to just move that bit quicker from the very start of the innings, so you aren't getting to the last 5 overs and having to try to rush to catch back up. It's a totally reasonable punishment, he knew what the punishment was, he had an official warning and knew that if he went over time again he'd get suspended. The Heat didn't appeal because they knew there weren't any grounds for it, because all these things people are mentioning had already been taking into account. It's like a football player getting a second yellow card for committing a blatant professional foul and then saying it's a bit harsh that he got a red card. He knew he was on a yellow and if he did that he'd get sent off. He then needs to take the punishment and the team needs to live with it. Same here.

Those delays you mention were taken into account, the 96 minutes is the total time taken after all the mitigating circumstances are removed. For some reason though the Big Bash doesn't "stop the clock" for the bowling team when a wicket is taken (they do so in other competitions such as the IPL). Considering it takes about 2 minutes by the time a batsman gets to the middle, does his stretches, asks for middle etc, the time adds up and disadvantages the bowling team. In the instance of the Heat v Scorchers game, the Heat took 5 wickets, which you could argue unfairly cost them 10 minutes, which in turn put them over the 90 minute limit.