The playing conditions for men’s internationals are shifting again. Papers circulated to the Full Members last week confirm four headline tweaks, some of which have already taken effect in the new World Test Championship (WTC) cycle and the rest due in early July.
Stop clock moves from white-ball to Tests
Slow over-rates have irritated captains, broadcasters and spectators for years. From this WTC cycle onwards the fielding side must be ready to begin the next over within 60 seconds of the previous one finishing. Umpires will warn a team twice; a third breach in any 80-over block triggers a five-run penalty. “The trial in limited-overs cricket cut dead time by almost four minutes an innings,” ICC chief executive Geoff Allardice noted. “There was no good reason not to extend it to Tests.”
Players have mixed feelings. Pat Cummins, whose Australia side were docked World Test Championship points in the previous cycle, admitted, “Anything that helps us stay ahead of the clock is welcome, but 60 seconds disappears quickly when you’ve got a left-hand/right-hand pair.” England spinner Jack Leach was more upbeat: “If it keeps things moving I’m all for it. Nobody buys a ticket to watch me set a field for five minutes.”
Saliva rule softened, but the ban remains
Covid forced an outright ban on using saliva to shine the ball. The ban stays, yet umpires are no longer instructed to change the ball automatically when a player is caught applying spit. Massimiliano Franco, the ICC’s head of cricket operations, explained the logic: “We had an unintended loophole. A fielding side could, in theory, force a ball change when it suited them. Now the on-field umpires decide purely on the condition of the ball.” They may still award five penalty runs to the batting team if the ball has been materially altered, but a replacement ball is at their discretion.
An important caveat: once the umpires decide the ball is unchanged it must stay in play, even if it suddenly swings round corners. The idea is to remove gamesmanship rather than to invite more of it.
LBW gets a second life in the DRS chair
The Decision Review System (DRS) often throws up the double-jeopardy scenario: caught behind given on-field, batter reviews, UltraEdge shows pad not bat, and everyone remembers the ball also thudded into the front pad. Previously, if ball-tracking then spat out an “umpire’s call”, the batter survived because the original verdict for lbw was technically “not out”. From July, that changes. The graphic will log the original decision as “out”, respecting the on-field umpire’s call to dismiss the batter—just via the wrong mode. If ball-tracking returns to umpire’s call, the batter is now out.
Allardice suggested the tweak is about common sense. “Fans and players alike were baffled when a batter who was clearly in front survived on a technicality. This tidies things up without altering the core of DRS.”
Combined reviews sorted in time order
In the less frequent but occasionally chaotic “combined review”, where both on-field umpires have referred a decision and the batting or bowling side also reviews, the third umpire will now handle each event chronologically. Up to now, the television umpire could jump between points of appeal, leading to confusion in the truck and in living rooms alike. Handling events in the order they happened should reduce the back-and-forth.
ODI ball change confirmed from the 35th over
Away from the Test arena, the ICC rubber-stamped using a single ball for the final 15 overs of an ODI innings. From the 35th over onwards, fielding sides will manage only the ball already in use. Seamers such as India’s Mohammed Shami believe it will bring reverse swing back into the contest earlier. Batters are not convinced. “The two-ball era kept one side shiny and the other hard,” New Zealand captain Kane Williamson pointed out. “This feels like a throwback. We’ll adapt, but totals might dip a touch.”
The wider context
The ICC’s Cricket Committee keeps nudging the sport towards a tidier product—shorter stoppages, fewer grey areas, a bit more jeopardy when teams dawdle. Match officials now have a growing set of tools: run-rate penalties, stop clocks, fielding restrictions and, in extremis, points deductions in World Test Championship tables.
Whether the latest suite of rules fixes anything long-term will become clear over the next 27 months of the WTC and, in one-day cricket, across a busy bilateral calendar leading into the 2027 World Cup. For now, captains may want to carry a stopwatch alongside the bowling marker.
