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LONDON. — Cricket umpires have been given the power to eject disobedient players while tethered bails will be permitted to protect wicketkeepers from eye injuries as part of a series of law changes coming into effect from October 1.
The new “Players conduct” rule will allow on-field officials to remove a misbehaving competitor temporarily or permanently and award five penalty runs to the opposition, the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) has said.
If a captain refuses to remove his offending player, the umpire can award the match to the opposition. If both captains refuse to comply, the contest can be abandoned.
The MCC, the custodians of the game’s laws, also merged “handled the ball” offence with “obstructing the field”, thus reducing the number of possible dismissals from 10 to nine.
It also ratified the proposal of tethered bails to protect wicketkeepers from the type of injuries that ended South African Mark Boucher’s career in 2012.
Boucher was hit in the eye by flying bails in a tour match in England, which forced him into retirement.
“Law 8.4 has been changed, to help prevent injuries, to allow specially designed mechanisms which tether the bails to the stumps, thereby restricting the distance that they can fly off the stumps but without limiting their ability to be dislodged,” the MCC said.
The MCC also approved bat restrictions and allowed substitutes to keep wicket.
Meanwhile, a Bangladesh club cricketer peppered the field with no balls and wides to concede 92 runs in four legal deliveries in an extraordinary protest against poor umpiring in the Dhaka Second Division Cricket League, local media reported yesterday.
Lalmatia Club’s Sujon Mahmud bowled 15 no balls to go with 13 wides that also raced to the boundary in his side’s match against Axiom Cricketers.
His four legal deliveries went for 12 runs as Axiom won by 10 wickets.
Lalmatia had been dismissed for 88 after being put into bat with the team unimpressed at several umpiring decisions that went against them in the match on Tuesday.
“It started at the toss,” Lalmatia general secretary Adnan Rahman Dipon told the Dhaka Tribune.
“My captain was not allowed to see the coin and we were sent to bat first and … the umpires’ decisions went against us.”
The tournament has been plagued by umpiring controversy and Fear Fighters Sporting Club’s Tasnim Hasan did something similar on Monday, conceding 69 runs in seven legitimate deliveries to protest against the umpiring. — Reuters
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