ICC created a new rule of penalizing teams for slow over rate. To avoid it, India has positioned extra fielders behind the boundary to save time. This strategy was utilised by Australia during the warm-up games and India developed similar strategies against Pakistan at MCG.
The new rules state that the fielding side will have one player less than outside the 30-yard circle for the remaining overs.
Players like Rishabh Pant, Deepak Hooda, and the support staff were at different parts of the grounds.
India deploys extra fielders to avoid over-rate penalty just like Australia
In India vs Pakistan match, the men in blue deployed their supporting staff and additional players behind the boundary to save time and avoid the fielding-restricting penalty.
India’s strategy just like Australia worked well and Rohit Sharma and Co. finished their innings within time against Pakistan.
As per ICC rules, “Article 2.22 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel relates to minimum over-rate offences and players are fined 20 per cent of their match fees for every over their side fails to bowl in the allotted time.”
The Australian cricket team came up with this unique strategy to avoid a slow over-rate penalty. They used this strategy during one of their T20s against England and Australian players who weren’t in the Playing XI could be seen fielding outside the boundary rope during the powerplay overs.
Cricket Australia posted on their Twitter handle where it can be seen several Aussies who were not a part of the squad XI fielding outside the boundary rope to return the ball as soon as possible to save time.
The strategy used by the Australian cricket team went well, all-rounder Ashton Agar said “In the powerplay, obviously, the ball flies around and you lose time when players have to go and fetch the ball which is a part of cricket. So the time thing is a really difficult one to manage.”
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