ICC to end Supersubs experiment

Cricket's first Supersub last July ... but the last one is likely to be next month © Getty Images

The ICC will recommend the end of the much-criticised Supersubs in one-day cricket as well as the launch of a Twenty20 World Championship when its chief executives meet in Dubai next month. The recommendations came from a meeting of the Chief Executives Committee (CEC).

The CEC discussed a general revamp of ICC events, and include proposals for World Cups in 2011 and 2015; the women's World Cup in 2009 and 2013; and the Under-19 World Cup in 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014.

"The ICC has worked hard to provide its members with flexibility in the scheduling of international cricket and these formats have been proposed with the aim of striking a good balance with the Future Tours Program (FTP) of bi-lateral series between nations," Malcolm Speed, the ICC chief executive said.

"These proposals now endorsed by the CEC provide the executive board with the option of including Twenty20 cricket on the international cricket calendar and revamping the Champions Trophy to provide a shorter, sharper event. Both formats could be played in a number of countries at different times of the year to fit in with the overall demands on international teams."

The endorsement of the proposals for future ICC events also means that the process of replacing the current five-year Future Tours Program (FTP) with a six-year program can continue.

"With greater certainty regarding the place of ICC events in the calendar, the ICC and its members are now in a position to continue their discussions over the introduction of a six-year program," Speed said.

The meeting also agreed with ICC management's recommendation that the trial of the Supersub should be discontinued. This recommendation will now go to the executive board for ratification.

David Richardson, the ICC general manager, said that the playing condition was not achieving what it set out to deliver. "The intention of Sunil Gavaskar and the panel of former players on the ICC cricket committee which recommended the trial of this playing condition was to encourage teams to make greater use of allrounders in the ODI game," he said.

"In practice, teams have elected to nominate a specialist player as the substitute and this is placing undue importance on winning the toss. There is no desire to create a situation where 12 players are used to do the job of 11 so we did not support the alternate view of allowing substitutes to be nominated after the toss. The proposal that the playing condition be discontinued has been endorsed by the CEC and will now go to the board for ratification."

If the board accepts this recommendation, the Supersub will no longer apply to series that start after March 21, 2006.

The CEC recommended that the other trial ODI playing condition which deal with fielding restrictions should be deferred to the April meeting of the ICC cricket committee, which is chaired by Gavaskar, before a final decision is made on its future.