The MCC world committee comprising of Mike Gatting, Sourav Ganguly and Ricky Ponting had a meet at the Lord”s with ICC chairman Dave Richardson. Several issues were discussed and Ricky Ponting, one of the members of MCC shared the minutes of the meet yesterday.
Speaking to the media, Ponting said that “shot clock” is set to be introduced in all the formats of the game. This will, in turn, have an eye on the number of overs bowled per day in tests. He stressed the fact that the over rates hit 11 years low and the rate in T20″s achieved a marginal decline. Introduction of this “shot clock” can make the skipper and his mates aware of the time limits and if exceeded, penalties would be imposed.
The initiative of bringing up protective gears for bowlers was also discusses and the committee said that relevant steps for its inclusion will be done.
The infamous sandpaper gate was one among the important problems discussed and the MCC welcomed the decision of imposing the ban on the players who failed to protect the gentleman”s game.
Ricky Ponting said “We talked about a number of different issues regarding the culture of the game and obviously the ball tampering was one at the top of the agenda, and how do we go about stamping that out. We are all in total agreement with what the ICC have done with strengthening the penalties for ball tampering offences. As a group we were talking about the stance Cricket Australia took and how harsh that stance might have seemed to ban players for 12 months and nine months respectively. It”s probably got the desired outcome, a kind of shock to world cricket. “
Other things discussed in the meet include the MCC tour to Zimbabwe to monitor the situations of the board and the much spoken 100-ball format.
It is to be noted that during the last meet earlier this year, the committee suggested that the play could be cancelled under extreme weather conditions.
The MCC remained positive for T20 cricket”s debut in the Olympics 2028 (Los Angeles) and women”s cricket in 2022 Commonwealth games (Birmingham).