The Ashes 2023: Khawaja approaches ICC to scale back gradual over-rate sanctions

Australia opener Usman Khawaja mentioned he had approached the International Cricket Council (ICC) about decreasing penalties for gradual over-rates in check matches after the governing physique introduced earlier this month it had determined to melt sanctions.

Khawaja mentioned it was “really frustrating” for gamers to lose their match charges regardless of delivering entertaining matches and that he had reached out to ICC General Manager Wasim Khan to hunt an answer.

The governing physique mentioned at its annual normal assembly that it was decreasing the penalty to five% from 20% for each over a participant’s group is discovered to be behind.

Australia and India have been hit with heavy penalties for gradual over-rates within the World Test Championship ultimate, whereas the Australians have been additionally punished for his or her price within the first two Ashes checks towards England.

Khawaja, talking forward of the fourth Ashes check starting at Old Trafford on Wednesday, mentioned as an Australian Cricketers’ Association board member he wished to discover a approach to converse to the ICC concerning the difficulty.

“We had played three games and they’d been three really good games with results, entertainment, the WTC (final) was the highest-watched test match ever or something like that,” he added.

“Just really good stuff – and we were getting fined 80% of our match fee. It’s a lot of money.”

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India’s gamers have been fined 100% of their match charges after they have been discovered to be 5 overs behind within the WTC ultimate, whereas Australia have been docked 80% for lagging 4 overs behind.

“Just really frustrating as a player,” mentioned Khawaja. “You are giving it your all out there, providing entertainment, then you are getting stung for it. Just felt like I needed to speak and Wasim was really good.”

Sourav Ganguly, chair of the ICC’s cricket committee, mentioned after the assembly final week that whereas groups would nonetheless be deducted WTC factors for gradual over-rates gamers would now not lose their complete match charges.

“We believe this provides a balance between maintaining over-rates and ensuring we are not deterring players from playing test cricket,” he added.