Forget over-rate fines, send someone off
Robert Craddock, writing in the Daily Telegraph , comes up with a left-field solution for lifting the over-rates, which have become a severe problem for Australia.
Peter English
25-Feb-2013
Robert Craddock, writing in the Daily Telegraph, comes up with a left-field solution for lifting the over-rates, which have become a severe problem for Australia.
Of all the measures being contemplated, the one that can achieve the result of quickening up the game without totally destroying its fabric is to send a fieldsman off while the team's over-rate remains at an unsatisfactory low. Sounds dramatic? Maybe.
But the time has come for drastic action and to address the problem as it happens. Over-rate fines to modern cricket captains are like parking fines to a rich businessmen. They are accepted with furrowed brows and mild frustration and are forgotten about the minute they are paid.
In the same paper Iain Payten looks at how much the Australians have been fined since Shane Warne stopped playing.
Since Warne's 2007 departure, Australia's Test side has been slugged with A$130,000 worth of fines for slow over rates. The captain Ricky Ponting has personally had to cough up $23,200 to the ICC after getting fined in five of 16 Tests without Warne - by far the worst record in world cricket.
Peter English is former Australasia editor of ESPNcricinfo