Sport - Cricket

‘Be assertive and proactive’

DUBAI: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has asked the match referees and umpires to be “assertive and proactive” in dealing with sledging and slow over-rates to ensure that the “feel-good factor” from the India-England Chennai Test remains.

ICC CEO Haroon Lorgat, in a letter to the match officials, has asserted that “players must play their parts” as well.

“Lorgat identified slow over-rates and verbal abuse as two key areas that must be kept in check for cricket to maintain its feel-good factor over the coming months,” the ICC said in a statement.

“He said players, and especially captains, also bore a major responsibility to ensure the game was played in the right spirit and at the right pace,” the statement read.

Lorgat lauded the spirit in which India and England played the Chennai Test. “After the recent Test match in Chennai there is a real feel-good factor about the game, and rightly so,” said Lorgat.

“It’s great that the game is in the news for all the right reasons and I want that to carry on now that we’ve moved into what is traditionally the busiest period in the cricketing calendar,” he added.

“That is why I have written to all the Emirates ICC match referees and umpires urging them to be assertive and proactive in dealing with slow over-rates and verbal abuse.” — PTI

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