England’s quick eight-wicket win over New Zealand in Christchurch was met with a surprise for both teams when the ICC decided to dock points from both sides for slow-over rates during the game. Due to their over-rate offences, both teams received three-point penalties in the World Test Championship (WTC) points table.
England captain Ben Stokes took to social media on Wednesday to express his disappointment with the decision, saying they had “finished the match with 10 hours of play still left.”
The players were also fined 15 per cent of their match fees.
England were given a target of 104 runs, which Stokes’ men chased down within 13 overs within the fourth day. However, as per ICC guidelines, both teams were deemed to have been three overs behind in their respective innings. With six and a half hours of play on Day 1, England bowled 83 overs taking into consideration the eight wickets that were fallen. To put it into better perspective, there were 77 overs bowled on the first day of the first Test between India and Australia, with 17 wickets fallen, causing more delays.
Ben Stokes’ Instagram story.
With the WTC 2023-25 final set to be played at Lord’s in June next year, Stokes recently termed the point system as “weird” and “confusing”. When the team had little to no chances to qualify for the finals, Stokes told the reporters that he didn’t care about the WTC, or the points. “In all honesty, the World Test Championship, it is a bit confusing, it’s one of those where, you know we don’t really look at it, I don’t look at it,” Stokes told reporters ahead of the first Test in Christchurch. “It’s one of those where over a long period of time if you’re playing really good cricket, you’re getting results that you want, you’ll end up finding yourself there in the final and in the mix.”
England sit sixth on the points table, out of contention to qualify for the finals. New Zealand’s chancers are slim after being docked three points, requiring inevitable victories in their remaining games while hoping other results will also fall in their favour.
