Red card, limit on bat width, catches off helmet...

Tribune News Service

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Chandigarh, September 26

The International Cricket Council (ICC) today introduced significant changes to its playing conditions, to be effective from two Test series starting on September 28 — Sri Lanka vs Pakistan and Bangladesh vs South Africa.

The new ICC code of laws, titled Laws of Cricket 2017 Code, was drafted this year, 17 years after the previous Code of Laws was written. There had been six editions of the year 2000 code, with changes made in 2003, 2008, 2010, 2013 and 2015. The new code was written to make some significant changes, and also tidy up many of the piecemeal changes made since 2000.

The introduction of the red card is the most significant development — in case a player threatens to assault an umpire, assaults a player or commits any other act of violence on the field, he can be sent off the field for the rest of the match.

Another important change relates to the thickness of the bat, which cannot be thicker than 67mm at the most. This means that players such as David Warner, who has used a bat that is 85mm thick at its thickest part, must now test and commission different kinds of bats.

Significant changes:

• No changes to the permitted width and length of a bat, but the thickness of the edge can be no more than 40mm and the thickness of the bat must not exceed 67mm at any point
• Players can now be sent off the field by the umpire for the rest of a match for serious misconduct, such as violence or threat of violence
• A batsman can be caught, run-out or stumped even if the ball makes contact with a helmet worn by the fielder or wicketkeeper
• For boundary catches, airborne fielders making their first contact with the ball will need to have taken off from inside the boundary
• If the ball bounces more than once before reaching the batsman, it will be called a no-ball. Previously a ball was allowed to bounce twice
• If a batsman grounds the bat while regaining the crease, and then loses contact with the bat or if the bat bounces off the ground and the stumps are broken, he shall not be run-out/stumped
• An appeal can be withdrawn, or the umpires can recall a dismissed batsman, at any time before the ball comes into play for the next delivery. Previously, a batsman could not be recalled once he’d left the field
• ICC has okayed the use of bails tethered to the stumps to prevent injuries caused by bails flying at the wicketkeeper/fielders
• The handled-the-ball dismissal has been removed and included under the obstructing-the-field category
• If an umpire’s decision is referred to the TV umpire by a team, and the on-field decision remains unchanged because the DRS shows “umpire’s call”, the team will not lose the review
• Teams will not have their DRS reviews reset after 80 overs — in other words, a team will have only two unsuccessful reviews for the entire innings
• A “Catch-all Law” has now been introduced to give umpires the power to deal with any conduct they believe is unfair that is not covered elsewhere in the Laws. Bowling a deliberate front-foot no ball comes under this, and the bowler will be removed from the attack for the rest of the innings. Also, fielders who distract the batsman after the batsman has received