ICC announces changes to slow over-rate penalties

ICC Men's Cricket Committee member Sourav Ganguly said a balance was needed between fines and keeping players interested to play test cricket.

The International Cricket Council (ICC), in their Annual Conference that took place today (13th July) in Durban, South Africa, announced certain changes to the current slow over-rate sanctions, specifically in Tests.

In order to strike a balance between the necessity to sustain over-rates and the need to keep player compensation in check, the Chief Executives' Committee of the ICC modified the over-rate fines in Test cricket.

Players will now be penalized 5% of their match fee for each sluggish over-rate above the teams' deficit. There is a maximum penalty of 50%. In the past, as happened with India and Australia during the ICC World Test Championship Final, players were even fined 100% of their match money.  

The goal of this adjustment by the ICC was to strike a compromise between the need to maintain over-rates and the need to pay players fairly. The regulations will be in effect beginning with the current World Test Championship cycle.

Players should not be fined 100% of their match fees for over-rate penalties as it can be a deterrent for them to play Test cricket

Furthermore, if a team is bowled out before the new ball is due at 80 overs, there will be no over-rate penalty applied despite a slow over-rate being maintained by the team. Until now, the cap was on 60 overs which has now been increased to 20 overs more.

Sourav Ganguly, a member of the ICC Men's Cricket Committee, explained that the modification was implemented to strike a balance between sustaining over-rates and preventing players from playing Test cricket.

He explained: “The Men’s Cricket Committee felt strongly that over-rate penalties in the form of WTC points deductions should remain but recommended that players should not have 100 percent of their match fee at risk. We believe this provides a balance between maintaining over-rates and ensuring we are not deterring players from playing Test cricket.”

Recently, during the WTC 2023 final between India and Australia at the Oval, Shubman Gill actually lost 115% of his match fees. He was initially fined 15% for showing dissent over the third umpire’s decision of giving him out.

And then the Indian team was fined 100 percent of their match fees for slow over-rate, meaning Shubman Gill actually paid from his pocket for this match.