The International Cricket Council (ICC) has decided to introduce a new rule named "stop clock" to regulate the time taken between overs. The law will be implemented on a trial-run basis from December 2023 to April 2024 in men's ODIs and T20Is particularly.
The law states that " If the bowling team is not ready to bowl the next over within 60 seconds of the previous over being completed, a 5-run penalty will be imposed the third time it happens in an innings," as mentioned in a media release issued by the ICC.
The meeting has led to a cluster of other changes that are expected to have a significant impact on the ever-changing landscape of the sport in both men's and women's circuits. The apex cricketing governing body has also tried to simplify the criteria regarding changes to the pitch and outfield monitoring regulations.
"Changes to the pitch and outfield monitoring regulations were also approved, including a simplification of the criteria against which a pitch is assessed and increasing the threshold for when a venue could have its international status removed from five demerit points to six demerit points over a five-year period," ICC's statement read.
ICC bans transgender cricketers born as men from participating in international women's cricket
In a ground-breaking development, the governing body has imposed a ban on transgender cricketers born as men from participating in women's international competitions across the world. The decision has been taken as per its newly approved gender eligibility regulations, following a 9-month consultation process with the sport’s stakeholders.
"The new policy is based on the following principles (in order of priority), protection of the integrity of the women’s game, safety, fairness and inclusion, and this means any Male to Female participants who have been through any form of male puberty will not be eligible to participate in the international women’s game regardless of any surgery or gender reassignment treatment they may have undertaken," ICC's statement read further.
However, the ICC has mentioned that the authority to take calls related to gender eligibility criteria at the domestic level will stay with the respective board.
"The review, which was led by the ICC Medical Advisory Committee chaired by Dr Peter Harcourt, relates solely to gender eligibility for international women’s cricket, whilst gender eligibility at domestic level is a matter for each individual Member Board, which may be impacted by local legislation. The regulations will be reviewed within two years," the media release stated.
