New Zealand Cricket calls for removal of bonus points at World Cup 2003

New Zealand Cricket believes there is little benefit and a significant downside in continuing with the use of bonus points in One-Day International tournaments or series.

New Zealand Cricket operations manager, John Reid, travelled to South Africa yesterday to present New Zealand Cricket's views at the ICC Cricket Committee Playing meeting in Cape Town.

"The bonus point system can be manipulated and provide an incentive not to win an individual game. Cricket must be seen to be 'squeaky clean' in terms of integrity of matches and must not be open to manipulation by teams. The opportunity to lose a game to qualify for a final or to win a series must not be provided," Reid said.

Reid said the introduction of the bonus point was an attempt to provide a more exciting game for spectators in circumstance that might be considered a 'dead' contest.

"New Zealand's recent experience of the bonus points system during the VB Series in Australia demonstrated it had little benefit in encouraging positive play and instead revealed the significant downside of a team being encouraged to play to less than its full potential in order to advance further in the competition," he said.

A second key agenda item at the ICC meeting is the continuing debate over the use of new technology.

New Zealand Cricket has been consistently supportive of the use of new technology in assisting the decision-making process, provided that the technology is proven to be consistently accurate and the flow of the game is not disrupted.

"New Zealand Cricket is recommending an extension of the use of new technology to include bump balls. Several bump ball incidents during the Southern Hemisphere summer have resulted in incorrect decisions. Technology in each instance would have clarified the issue. It seems sensible to provide the umpires with support when often they and the players involved are not able to be certain about the ball's trajectory," Reid said.

The ICC Cricket Committee - Playing meeting is to be held in Capetown, South Africa, from 17-18 March 2002.