ICC plans tough penalties for tampering
Ruling body to increase sanctions for cheating Crackdown on sledging also under consideration
Increased sanctions for ball-tampering have been recommended by the International Cricket Council cricket committee in response to the sandpaper scandal during Australia’s Test tour of South Africa.
Cricket Australia issued bans of between nine and 12 months to captain Steve Smith, vice-captain David Warner and Cameron Bancroft after Bancroft damaged the ball during the Test in Cape Town.
The ICC had the power only to impose much smaller sanctions: Smith was banned by the governing body for a single match and fined 100 per cent of his match fee, the maximum sentence.
As a result, the cricket committee has backed the raising of ICC sanctions, reflecting how seriously it regarded the events in Cape Town. The recommendations will be discussed at the ICC’S next chief executives’ committee, in June.
Giving the ICC the ability to im- pose greater punishments, rather than relying on national boards to punish their own players, will be a sign of a tougher attitude to tampering. It would also reduce the chances of some boards imposing smaller sanctions in order to maintain the strength of their sides.
As part of attempts to improve player behaviour, the committee advocated creating a regulation for “offensive, personal, insulting, offensive or orchestrated abuse”.
South Africa fast bowler Kagiso Rabada was recently banned for a Test, only to be reprieved on appeal, after a shoulder-bump on Smith took him over the ICC’S demerit points threshold.
“The group felt that excessive personal abuse and ball-tampering were serious offences in the game and that should be reflected in the way in which they are dealt with,” said Anil Kumble, the former India captain who heads the committee.
The committee addressed the rules in the new ICC World Test Championship, which will begin next year. It rejected the idea of the toss being awarded to the visiting team – a measure that has been suggested to reduce home advantage.
It also recommended a scoring system in which points were awarded on the basis of every match, with no extra points for series victory, which would mean no “dead” Tests.
It was proposed that each team would get one-third of the number of points for a draw as they would from winning it, which would incentivise attacking cricket.
The exact points system that will be used remains unclear, largely because series within the championship will last anywhere between two and five Tests.
Meanwhile, Eoin Morgan has fractured a finger, ruling him out of the Rest of the World XI’S one-off Twenty20 contest against West Indies at Lord’s tomorrow, which is being held to raise funds for stadiums in Dominica and Anguilla damaged by hurricanes last year.
But Morgan is expected to feature for England against Scotland in a one-day international in Edinburgh on June 10.