Duleep Trophy 2024: ‘Penalise teams with runs for slow over-rates’, says Rahane

At the moment, fielding captain and his team face monetary sanctions – starting from 10 per-cent of match-fees for the team and 20 per-cent for the captain up to 50 per cent for the team to 100 per-cent for the captain – in domestic cricket.

File Photo: Mumbai’s Ajinkya Rahane. | Photo Credit: EMMANUAL YOGINI/ The Hindu

Cream of Indian First Class cricket was definitely on display during the Duleep Trophy and the Irani Cup. While the quality of cricket lived up its billing for most of the last month, the pace at which the games trudged along – with no captain or team appearing to be serious about adhering to prescribed over-rate – definitely was a dampener.

Mumbai captain Ajinkya Rahane – a veteran of 87 Test caps – has called for imposition of run penalties to curb the over-rate menace in domestic cricket.

“The one factor was the heat. It was really hot, so we have to think about the players as well but I feel because there are no penalties for the overs short... if they start penalising the team by number of runs for every over that the fielding team is short by, for instance 12 runs for one over, 24 for two and so on and it should be added after every day’s player,” Rahane said after leading Mumbai to its 15th Irani Cup win, on the basis of the first innings lead against Rest of India.

The over-rate in the Irani Cup was so bad that the game was literally brought to a standstill on multiple occasions. If the first two days saw RoI – led by Ruturaj Gaikwad – bowling 68 and 70 overs, respectively, the last day’s play was the most bizarre. With RoI in no rush and Mumbai batters employing time-wasting tactics to ensure a draw, only 38 overs were bowled on the last day in 240 minutes before the teams shook hands.

At the moment, fielding captain and his team face monetary sanctions – starting from 10 per cent of match-fees for the team and 20 per cent for the captain up to 50 per cent for the team to 100 per cent for the captain – in domestic cricket. For time-wasting also, batting side faces monetary and disciplinary sanctions.

“I always believe that players should maintain that discipline. They should play within the rules. But at the moment there are no penalties, so I cannot comment too much about the rules. Whoever is managing domestic cricket, I feel if they can add these strict run penalties, it will be a huge thing.”

Is anybody listening to avoid the trend filtering into Ranji Trophy?