The International Cricket Council (ICC) annual conference concluded on Thursday and as expected, the international body approved concussion player replacements in all formats of men’s and women’s international cricket and for first-class cricket worldwide.
The ICC in a statement said that the regulation will be included in ICC playing conditions from August 1. It said that decisions on replacements will continue to be made by the team medical representative and the player should be a like-for-like replacement who will need to be approved by the match referee.
The Cricket Committee’s recommendations were taken into account with regards to the pace of play and slow over rates and the ICC has decided that captains alone will no longer be suspended for repeated or serious over rate breaches and all players should be held equally responsible for slow over rates, and as such will be fined at the same level as the captain.
The ICC said that in the World Test Championship matches a team that is behind the required over rate at the end of a match will have two competition points deducted for each over it is behind.
The ICC endorsed the Cricket Committee recommendation that there should be further exploration of the Ause of replays to call no-balls and trials will be conducted over the coming months.
The Zimbabwe cricket board has been suspended with immediate effect. The ICC believes that Zimbabwe Cricket is in breach of Article 2.4 (c) and (d) of the ICC constitution which imposes an obligation on Members to provide a process for free and democratic elections and to ensure that there is no government interference in its governance and / or administration for cricket respectively.
The result of the suspension is that ICC’s funding to Zimbabwe Cricket will be frozen and its teams will not participating in any ICC events. The ICC further said that the elected Zimbabwe Cricket Board be reinstated to office within three months, and progress in this respect will be considered again at the October board meeting.