Rules of cricket to change

Published>Fri, May 07 10 12:38 PM

The Marylebone Cricket Club ( MCC), guardian of the Laws of Cricket, is set to effect several changes in the rules. If passed, the changes will come into effect on October 1.

The proposed changes refer to Laws 3.8 and 3.9, which relate to the umpires suspending play as a result of the fitness of the ground, weather or light; Laws 12.4 and 12.5, involving the toss; Law 17, concerning practice on the field; Law 24.5, which pertains to fair delivery ( the feet); Law 28.1, which relates to wicket being put down; Law 29.1 that deals with a batsman out of his ground; and Law 42.14 that relates to batsman damaging the pitch.

But the most interesting of the proposed changes is a new law that involved spectacular catches near the boundary line.

" A new 19.4 has been created to clarify further when the ball is beyond the boundary. In recent years, increasingly athletic pieces of fielding on the boundary have brought this area of the Law into the spotlight," said MCC on its website.

" The Laws sub- committee felt that it would be wrong to allow a fielder, seeing a ball flying over his head and over the boundary, to retreat beyond the boundary and then to jump up and parry the ball back towards the field of play," it said.

" Consequently, Law 19.4( i) requires that the fielder's first contact with the ball must be when some part of his person is grounded within the boundary or, if he is airborne, that his final contact with the ground before touching the ball was within the boundary."

Reproduced From Mail Today. Copyright 2010. MTNPL. All rights reserved.

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