Super Over May Decide 2015 World Cup Winners
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has put its faith in Super Over as the “credible way to separate two sides” in the event of a tie, and the same condition will be in force in the event the 2015 ICC World Cup final on March 29 ends with scores tied.
The decision was taken at ICC Board’s first meeting of the year at its headquarters in Dubai on Wednesday.
“The ICC Board reinstated the use of a Super Over in the event of a tie in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 final. This now replicates the arrangements for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 final and other recent ICC events where a winner will be determined on the day of the final (weather permitting), and a Super Over was the most credible way to separate the two sides,” the official media release said.
Among other major decisions taken related to the coming World Cup was allowing all 14 team captains to go into the tournament without any prior over-rate offences or suspensions.
The game’s apex body decided that an offence made in a non-ICC event will be carried forward to the team’s next bilateral series.
“The ICC Board also approved a change to the application of ICC Code of Conduct offences relating to slow over-rates in ICC events so that captains do not carry any prior minor over-rate offence ‘strikes’ or over-rate suspensions from other series into an ICC event,” the release said.
“This approval means all captains will enter the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 with no over-rate ‘strikes’ against their names, and they will only be suspended from playing in an ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 match if over-rate offences are committed during the event.”
“Any over-rate ‘strikes’ incurred prior to the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 will be carried forward to the first bilateral series after the event,” it added.
The ICC also announced the match officials for the World Cup.
Marais Erasmus and Nigel Llong will be the on-field umpires for the World Cup opener between New Zealand and Sri Lanka on February 14 as ICC Friday announced the umpire and match referees for the pool stage of the mega cricket event.
S Ravi and Simon Fry will be the third and fourth umpires, respectively, while David Boon will be the match referee for the first match to be held in Christchurch.
On the same day in a day/night fixture in Melbourne, Australia will lock horns with England in a match which will be umpired by Aleem Dar and Kumar Dharmasena.
Billy Bowden will act as the third umpire, while Joel Wilson will perform the fourth umpire’s duties. Jeff Crowe will be the match referee.
Apart from Boon and Crowe, Chris Broad, Ranjan Madugalle and Roshan Mahanama will share the match referees’ responsibilities during the 44-day tournament in which 49 matches will be played. All the five are members of the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Match Referees.
In addition to the four on-field umpires in action on the opening day, Bruce Oxenford, Ian Gould, Paul Reiffel, Richard Illingworth, Richard Kettleborough, Rod Tucker and Steve Davis will feature during the event.
Fry, Ravi and Wilson are members of the Emirates International Panel of ICC Umpires. They will be joined by Johan Cloete, Chris Gaffaney, Michael Gough, Ranmore Martinesz and Ruchira Palliyaguru during ICC’s pinnacle event.
