Follow UsNo team has faced more points deductions for slow over rate than England in all three editions combined of the World Test Championship (WTC) so far. While they escaped the 2019-21 edition without any point deduction, the English lost 22 points in the 2023-25 cycle and 12 in the 2021-23 cycle.
In the latest edition of the championship too, England became the first team to face points deductions for slow over rate as they were docked two points after their Lord’s win against India. A frustrated Ben Stokes refused to sign the match over rate sheet in protest, similar to what he had during Ashes 2023 at home.
Stokes reasoned that both pacers and spinners cannot bowl an over at the same time. He opined that, in places where pace is likely to be bowled more than spin, the ICC should set different regulations.
“You can’t have the same rules in Asia, where spin is bowling 70 per cent of the overs, to have the same laws in New Zealand, Australia, England, where it’s going to be 70 or 80 per cent of seam bowling, because the spinner’s over takes less time than a seamer’s over,” Stokes was quoted as saying by Sportstar.
“Common sense would think that you should look at changing how the over-rates are timed on different continents,” added the England captain.
Explaining why he feels England lagged behind in over rate during the Lord’s Test, Stokes said, "We played five days. That was our 15th day of cricket. We obviously had an injury to Bash [Shoaib Bashir], a spinner, so we couldn’t turn to our spinner as much as we would have liked to on day five.
“So, we had to throw a seam at them for pretty much the whole day. That’s obviously going to slow things down.”
England will play the fourth Test in Manchester again with a lone spinner in Liam Dawson. They would be looking to make sure that they go without any point deduction in this game, as every point would count while determining the two teams that will play the final at Lord’s in 2027.