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Sydney - Former Australia fast bowler and
current Yorkshire coach Jason Gillespie has poured scorn over slow over rates,
saying it's down to lazy captaincy and bowling, and teams should be heavily
penalised.
'Dizzy' scoffed at the minimal fines
players get for delaying the game, saying teams will make more of an effort if
they lost runs per over down the drain.
One day of the recent England v Pakistan
Test at Edgbaston saw eight overs lost in the day, nearly a tenth of the day.
England batsman Alex Hales went so far as to pay a fan 10 percent of his money
back.
Gillespie wrote in the London Evening
Standard: "Don't listen to international players when they make excuses
for their dreadful over rates.
"Overs are bowled too slowly because
players are lazy, and their teams should be given run penalties when this
happens.
"It is unacceptable for a side to fail
to bowl 15 overs per hour for six hours - and I say this as a former fast
bowler who wasn't necessarily the quickest at getting through his overs.
"So if I were a match referee, I would
be incredibly tough on it. I would have a pretty simple policy - 10 runs
deducted for every over a team failed to bowl. So if they got through only 89
in a day, they'd lose 10 runs."
He added that the delays caused fans to be
put off the game, at a time when crowd numbers are dwindling already: "We
have to make our game as customer friendly as possible.
"That means that it should proceed at
a nice, brisk pace. We want as many people as possible to fall in love with
cricket. They're not going to do that if the game keeps stopping for reasons
they don't understand.
"Players need to take ownership of
this situation. They need to start taking some responsibility. If you speak to
them, they will come up with all sorts of reasons why the over rates are slow.
"They'll mention the Decision Review System, or people moving around in the batsman’s eye line. These are excuses. Just take some responsibility and get through the overs. No ifs, no buts. Just do it."
