The England and Australia men’s teams have lost key World Test Championship (WTC) points after being fined for maintaining a slow over-rate during their Ashes 2023 campaign. Under the updated Cricket Governing Body regulations, players on both teams were penalized 5% of their match fee and one WTC point was removed for each over that was not completed.
England drew the Ashes series 2-2 even as Australia retained the Urn. Ben Stokes’s men pulled off a sensational 49-run win in the final Test at The Oval to deny Australia their first Ashes series in England since 2001. The three lions have dropped below West Indies in the WTC points table to the 5th spot.
England and Australia lose crucial points
As a result, England ended the series with just nine WTC points (24 for two wins and four for one draw, minus 19 for the over-rate penalties), and Australia 18 points (24 for two wins and four for the draw, minus ten). That left Australia at No. 3 on the WTC table, with 30 percentage points, behind Pakistan (100) and India (66.67), while England was at No. 5, below West Indies (16.67) with 15 points.
Australia were handed a 50 per cent fine of their match fee (five per cent for each over short with a maximum of 50 per cent) for 10 overs in Manchester (fourth Test). England have been fined 10 per cent for the first Test, 45 per cent for the second, 15 per cent for the fourth, and 25 per cent for the fifth of their match fee for slow-over rate offences in the first two and the last two Tests respectively.
Rain was almost constant, and there weren’t many overs from spin bowlers, which might have contributed to the sluggish over rates. Moeen Ali and Joe Root, England’s key spinners, bowled a total of 179.1 overs. Stuart Broad bowled 184.2 overs by himself. Speaking before the final Test, Pat Cummins had said, “This series has been a bit of an outlier I think. We haven’t had any over-rate sanctions over the last few years until this series. It feels like this one has been played at a different pace.”
Here’s how fans reacted
This is very bad rule, In Asia teams will never face this overrate issue because of spin dominance we know spinner can bowl even more than 90 overs in a day, But in overseas SENA countries this will remain huge issue as pacers dominates more in these countries it will huge task…
— Lubana Warriors (@LovepreetS49) August 2, 2023
Just start awarding 10 penalty runs for every over they’re behind. It’ll have a bigger impact than WTC points.
— Whits B (@whits106) August 2, 2023
But they showed us the best of Test cricket, which the Indian team does not show. Indian Team only earn points by playing with weak teams.
— ??? ???? (@00_butcher) August 2, 2023
Any idea how massively does that impact them ?
— Rajdeep Singh (@travisheadera) August 2, 2023
ICC should not deduct points for slow over rates ?
— Ayush Anand (@crictopher014) August 2, 2023
That is stupid, 90 overs is way too many – cut it down to 80 & give them a chance, I don’t want test players running around just to get overs in , quality not quantity
— andrew walker (@wackerlegend) August 2, 2023
Bazball ???
— Yuviz (@rulesyuvi) August 2, 2023
I think this rule should be changed
Slow Over-Rate penalty should only apply on drawn tests as if the match is giving result why should cut your points.@ICC take notice— FT Fan (@hanan_khan3) August 2, 2023
