Bureau Report
Karachi: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has confirmed the playing conditions for India vs New Zealand World Test Championship final, which is set to be played next month at Southampton, starting from June 18th.
The playing conditions confirm that a draw or a tie will see both teams crowned as joint winners as well as the allocation of a Reserve Day to make up for any lost time during the regular days of the Final – scheduled to be played from 18 to 22 June, with 23 June set aside as the Reserve Day.
Both of these decisions were made in June 2018, prior to the commencement of the ICC World Test Championship. The match will be played using Grade 1 Dukes cricket balls.
The Reserve Day has been scheduled to ensure five full days of play, and it will only be used if lost playing time cannot be recovered through the normal provisions of making up lost time each day. There will be no additional day’s play if a positive result is not achieved after five full days of play and the match will be declared a draw in such a scenario.
In the event of time being lost during the match, the ICC Match Referee will regularly update the teams and media about the way in which the Reserve Day may be used.
The final decision on whether the Reserve Day needs to be used will be announced at the scheduled start of the last hour on the fifth day.
New changes to be implemented
The final will be played with the recent changes to international playing conditions implemented – they are in effect in ongoing Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka series too.
The third umpire will automatically review all calls of short runs by on-field umpires and communicate the decision to the field umpire before the next ball is bowled.
Before reviewing an lbw decision, the fielding captain or the dismissed batter can check with the on-field umpires whether they thought a genuine attempt was made to play the ball.
For lbw reviews, the height margin of the wicket zone has been lifted to the top of the stumps to ensure the same umpire’s call margin around the stumps for both height and width.
