London, (Samajweekly) With each innings of the match restricted to 100 deliveries, the maiden season of The Hundred will have the umpires signalling a five-ball ‘over’ as things will be measured in terms of balls, and umpires will raise a white card to signal completion of five balls.
Besides, the powerplay will last 25-balls and the toss will be conducted on a DJ stand, according to the playing conditions by the England and Cricket Board (ECB) for the event on Tuesday.
Also, for the first time, DRS will be available for domestic matches in England and a bowler can get to bowl a maximum of 20 deliveries in a match, which could be done either in four chunks of five-deliveries each or two of 10. The Kookaburra while ball will be used — one for each innings of 100 balls.
Each innings will last 100 balls each, with ten balls bowled from each end, split into two blocks of five balls each. A bowler can bowl either five or ten balls in succession as deemed fit by the captain from the same end or alternate ends. Each bowler will bowl up to a maximum of 20 balls per game, the ECB informed.
At the end of each five-ball chunk, the umpire will call ‘five’ rather than ‘over’ and raise a white card. This is to help provide an obvious separation of the two five-ball chunks for those watching to avoid any confusion if a bowler bowls ten successive deliveries from the same end.
The Powerplay will be restricted to the first 25 balls of each innings during which only two fielders will be allowed outside the20-yard circle. After this period, the fielding team can request a Strategic Timeout of two minutes at any time in the remainder of the innings. This is not compulsory, however, and the batting team cannot request this.
To maintain gender neutrality, the term batter will be used instead of a batsman. the new batter will take strike once a batter gets out, even if the non-striker has crossed over.
In case of a tied game in the preliminary group stage, each team will be allowed one point. But in case of tie in an Eliminator or the Final, a ‘Super Five’ (instead of a Super Over) will be played and in case of a tie in the Super Five, the teams will contest over another five-ball set. And if even that ends in a tie, the team that finished higher in the standings in the Group stage will be declared winner.
