MCC Bats
There has been a development on a‘ By the Bye’ we ran in the spring 2015 magazine. It has been announced that MCC is to debate and decide on a proposal to limit the size of cricket bats within the Laws of Cricket. This decision follows on from the ICC Cricket Committee’ s recommendation that MCC should consider a change in the Laws of Cricket to help address the perceived imbalance between bat and ball in modern cricket. At this meeting it has been disclosed that John Stephenson, MCC Head of Cricket, presented a research paper evidencing that bats have become more powerful in recent years. A counterargument to this is that this advance in technology has led to faster scoring and therefore attracted new audiences to the game, as well as other factors such as smaller boundaries and better pitches that have given batsmen an advantage.
MCC’ s World Cricket Committee and Cricket Committee will make a decision in the next month as to whether this change will be included in the new Laws released on 1 October 2017.
ICC Cricket Committee
The last day of May and first day of June saw Lord’ s play host to the ICC Cricket Committee. The Cricket Committee is in place to make recommendations on playing issues to the ICC for approval and is currently chaired by legendary Indian spinner Anil Kumble. Issues discussed by the committee included: international cricket structure; use of technology; MCC research into the balance between bat and ball; concussion substitutes; and helmet safety.
After the meeting, Kumble said:‘ We have had positive and constructive discussions across a wide range of different issues and I would like to thank all the members for their valuable contributions and input. The main thing that came out of the meeting was regarding Test cricket. The new structure was discussed and everybody was positive and forthcoming in supporting that. The committee acknowledged the importance of efforts being made to promote and grow Test cricket, be it through the introduction of meaningful competition structures, better pitches and marketing. Our recommendations will now be taken forward to the next ICC Chief Executives’ Committee and the ICC Board meeting in Edinburgh in July.’
Records Tumble at Trent Bridge
Trent Bridge was host to one of the most remarkable one-day matches witnessed in cricketing history. The match between Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire included a record English one-day partnership of 342 and a record number of aggregate runs in a one-day match of 870. Nottinghamshire, batting first, compiled a colossal 445 / 8 from their 50 overs, with Michael Lumb and Riki Wessels sharing the record partnership of 342( contributing 176 and 146 respectively).
Northamptonshire then attempted a remarkable run chase, eventually falling just 20 runs short, with Rory Kleinveldt’ s 128 off 63 balls propelling them to an agonising 425 all out. As you can imagine the standing umpires were kept very busy throughout all this, with analysis showing that in total Messrs Gale and Gough signalled 83 fours, 35 sixes, four byes, 12 leg byes, 20 wides and eight no balls … we imagine they both had sore arms when they woke up the next morning!
email us at ecb. aco @ ecb. co. uk contact us on 0121 446 2710 19