Former England cricketer David Gower has reckoned that the Indian Premier League (IPL) could benefit if it could embrace one particular rule from The Hundred – the 100-ball competition that finished on Sunday.
The one of its kind tournament introduced several new rules, including penalizing the fielding team for maintaining the slow over-rate. In case of such an event, the fielding team gets immediate punishment and is asked to cut short one fielder from outside the circle. This allowed the batting team to be more aggressive and ensured that the matches finished at an appropriate time.
Notably, the IPL has been severely criticized for having lengthy matches due to slow-over rates. There were occasions when teams took more than 4 hours to complete the proceedings.
“If the IPL were to adopt that one idea from The Hundred, which is to penalize the fielding side if they’re too slow, with field placing, that would make a difference to any game. So maybe that’s one of the good ideas to come out of The Hundred,” Gower told Cricket.com
Gower also suggested that fining players for slow-over rates is not as effective given players earn a heavy amount these days. The former English skipper felt there need to be some other ways to make teams stick to maintaining the over rates.
“I don’t get too upset by over rates. But it would be nice if people could stick to the over rates. There is no easy answer. They’ve tried fining people, but nowadays, the odd bit of money disappearing doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference to players, who are already incredibly well paid. Maybe this points thing is valid. Maybe you’ve got to fine the teams in a way that it works,” Gower added.
The second leg of IPL 2021 is set to resume on September 19 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with reigning champions Mumbai Indians (MI) taking on Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in Dubai.
