USA became the first team to be penalised five runs under the International Cricket Council's new “stop-clock rule" during the T20 World Cup 2024 match against India in New York on Wednesday (June 12).
The rule was trialed in international matches from December of last year and was made a permanent fixture by the ICC in T20Is at the end of its trial period in April 2024.
The rule is used to determine the time elapsed between overs, with teams having a minute to start the next over.
A bowling team will receive two warnings if they go over time during their fielding innings, and will be handed a five-run penalty for every further violation.
The USA team was penalised for third violation at the start of the 16th over. As a result, India's run chase was reduced to needing 30 runs off 30 balls to reach their 111-run target instead of 35 off 30 deliveries.
“Three times they’ve exceeded the sixty seconds they have allotted to get through between overs,” commentator Ebony Rainford-Brent quoted as saying by ICC. “So they’ve been going slow, moving slow, maybe overthinking due to the pressure in this game.
“Maybe sometimes that’s the difference between two sides. India have been there and done that at so many tournaments. Aaron Jones is living out his best at the moment, two wins, kind of up there at the top of the group with four points and hoping, maybe overthinking about strategy. You can’t afford that in this format.”
The five-run penalty did not much impact the outcome as the Men in Blue were already in the driver’s seat in this Group A match.
After being reduced to 39/3, India rode on Suryakumar Yadav’s unbeaten half-century (50 off 49 balls) and Shivam Dube’s composed 31* off 35 balls to overhaul the target with seven wickets in hand and 10 deliveries to spare.
“It’s a new rule that’s come up,” former India cricketer Dinesh Karthik said, as quoted by ICC. “There’s been a lot of pressure on the bowling team captain – India just got away with it in the game against Pakistan, where they had two faults and the third one would have been a strike. But now America have definitely done this to themselves.”
(With ICC Inputs)
