‘Can't have same rules in Asia where...': Ben Stokes slams ICC after England…

India.com

5 days ago

Ben Stokes
England skipper Ben Stokes strongly criticized the International Cricket Council (ICC) for the slow over-rate penalties in the World Test Championship (WTC). His remarks came after England lost two crucial WTC points for maintaining over-rate during the Lord's Test, which they won by 22 runs against India last week. Along with the points deduction, the team also faced a fine of 10 percent of their match fees.
Stokes said that rules should be different for different venues and conditions. He pointed out that the same rules shouldn't apply to both SENA and Asian conditions.
The 34-year-old all-rounder, who was given the Player of the Match award for his impressive performance with the ball in Lord's Test said that spinners dominate the Asian condition, therefore overs are bowled in time, whereas the situation is different in SENA countries, where the condition often require pacers to bowl more overs, naturally leading to a slow over-rate.
Ben Stokes questions ICC on slow-over rate rule
'Over rate isn't something that I worry about, but that's not saying that I purposely slow things down. I do understand the frustration around it, but I honestly think there needs to be a real hard look at how it's structured. You can't have the same rules in Asia, where spin is bowling 70 per cent of the overs, to have the same laws in New Zealand, Australia, England, where it's going to be 70-80 per cent seam bowling,' said Stokes during a pre-match press conference ahead of the Manchester Test.
'Because a spinner's over takes less time than a seamer's over. So common sense would think that you should look at maybe changing how the over rates are timed in different continents. I think as well, the over rates obviously have gone down over the course of quite a few years now. There are times in games where it's all on the line, and you won't just throw the ball to a spinner to get your overs round. You're not playing an international game where you're just trying to get your over rate back. I don't think people want to come and watch that,' he added.
Earlier, former England captain Michael Vaughan also questioned the ICC for issuing penalties to England while showing flexibility toward India. He noted that both teams committed slow over-rate violations, which should have resulted in equal penalties.
What does Article 2.22 of ICC Code of Conduct says?
Following the conclusion of the Lord's Test, ICC issued an official statement confirming the sanction on England. At the time, Stokes accepted the charge, which meant a formal hearing was not required.
'On-field umpires Paul Reiffel and Sharfuddoula Ibne Shahid, third umpire Ahsan Raza, and fourth umpire Graham Lloyd levelled the charge,' the ICC said in its official release.
The sanction was issued by ICC Elite Panel match referee Richie Richardson, who found that England fell two overs short, even after factoring in time allowances.
According to Article 2.22 of the ICC Code of Conduct for players and support staff, players who fail to finish their over in the allotted time will be fined five percent of their match fee for each over short.
Stokes justifies his team after the sanction imposed by ICC
Ben Stokes further justified the slow over rate during the Lord's Test and said, 'I can understand it from an external point of view around the overs, I really do. But it's a very tough thing to do when I feel there's more to it than just getting rounds, getting told I'll just quicken up, get three overs. There's a lot that actually goes on the field. You've got fast bowlers bending their backs consistently. So throughout the course of a game, the time of overs is going to come down because you've just got tired bodies,' Stokes said.
'We played for five days, that was our 15th day of cricket. We obviously had an injury to Shoaib Bashir, a spinner. So we couldn't turn to our spinner as much as we would have liked to on day five. So we had to throw a seam at them for pretty much the whole day. So that's obviously going to slow things down. And there are periods in the game where you do try and just slow everything down, more tactically if anything like that,' he concluded