LONDON: The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has insisted no decisions on the exact format of its planned 100-ball competition will be taken until it has analysed the result of several trial matches in September.
Tuesday saw Britain’s Daily Telegraph report the ECB were considering allowing a substitute to bat or bowl.
Meanwhile, The Times claimed it could be as many as four substitutes, which would effectively turn the competition into a 15-a-side game but with only 11 players allowed to bat or field. But a spokesman for the ECB, English cricket’s national governing body, dismissed both reports as “speculation”, saying today:
“No decisions have been made on the playing conditions for the new competition which will start in the summer of 2020.
“To develop the competition there are a number of on-going discussions, including one with a high-performance group who are planning a series of pilot matches in September.
“Conversations with players, host venues and stakeholders across the game are vital to the competition’s development and inevitably lead to speculation on a range of matters.
“Ultimately, it is board of the ECB which makes the final decision on the format and rules for the new competition and that is expected later this year.”
The International Cricket Council briefly trialled the concept of a ‘supersub’ in one-day internationals from 2005-06 but then abandoned the move and reverted to a standard 11-a-side format in ODIs.
The ECB’s new tournament was already controversial when it was thought to be a city-based Twenty20 competition designed to rival the Indian Premier League and Australia’s Big Bash, with many of England’s 18 first-class counties worried about the impact it could have on their existing T20 Blast.
But there was a largely negative reaction from existing cricket fans when the ECB unveiled its tentative plans for a new 100 balls-per-side format in April.
There are also concerns regarding the game of cricket in the women’s game over the ECB’s proposals to abandon their succesful Twenty20 Super League, which is seen as a pathway for what is now the main form of women’s international cricket. (AFP)
