Strategic time-out to be reviewed after tournament

Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, has said that the mid-innings strategic time-out, which has come in for widespread criticism, would be reviewed at the end of the season.

Sachin Tendulkar had said the seven-and-a-half minute interval, introduced in this year's tournament, hampered a team's momentum, and others including Kings XI Punjab coach Tom Moody and Chennai Super Kings head of cricket operations VB Chandrasekhar had also voiced their disapproval.

"I neither agree nor disagree [with the criticism] … this is an innovation, an experiment we are trying this year," Modi wrote in his blog on the IPL's official website. "And as with all innovations, there are probably good points to this, and also bad points - but there will be time to evaluate those.

"When the league is over, the last ball has been bowled here in South Africa and a winner has been crowned, our real work will begin to fine tune the IPL for improvements next year.

"On the basis of an exhaustive review, we will be able to arrive at some conclusions on what has worked, what hasn't worked; we will be able to decide what needs to be changed, or fine-tuned, or scrapped altogether."

Modi also defended the interruption in play, writing that "such practices are normal in the world of sport be it on the Grid-Iron or the basketball courts of the NBA."

Modi had earlier said the tactical time-out was designed to allow teams to discuss strategy instead of having to spend time on it during the course of the game, and hence minimise match-time delays.