Cricket Australia mulls penalising commentators for interfering in match action

The ongoing edition of Big Bash League has arguably been the best thus far. The tournament has provided some stellar show with both bat and the ball. The T20 league of Australia is surely putting up a close competition to the most popular T20 league in the world – the Indian Premier League (IPL). While the action in the tournament has been fruitful, there have been a few concerns for Cricket Australia too. The most recent of all controversies has been one encircling the commentators.

As a part of their continuous innovation of the game, the BBL authorities have been having a player wired up to the microphone throughout the innings in the match. The wired up player is then in conversation with the commentators during the course of the game. The move has helped in engaging the viewers a lot more. However, one way in which the move seemed to have backfired is that the commentators have been found passing valuable information to the player they are talking too.

An incident of such kind came to the fore when Adelaide Strikers player Sydney Thunder in a recent encounter. The skipper of Adelaide Strikers Brad Hodge was the person wired up on the occasion during Sydney Thunder innings.

During the match, Thunder batsman Shane Watson looked threatening with the bat. Hodge was worried and was apparently told by the commentators that Ben Laughlin has good stats against the former Aussie batsman. Ten Network’s commentator Mark Howard was the man passing on the information. He is one of the renowned commentators in the tournament and has been giving stats passed on to him by the statistician.

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Mark Howard, during the game, told Hodge that Laughlin had dismissed Watson twice in 8 balls in BBL. “Our master statistician Lawrie Colliver tells us Laughlin has got Watson twice in the last eight balls he’s bowled him in this competition,” Howard had said. A surprised Hodge had then exclaimed, “Really?”.

Howard replied back affirming the same as he quoted, “I will leave that with you skipper.” Hodge was quick to take the stats into consideration and got Laughlin back into the attack. He had replied, “I’ll bring him on next over then. Let’s get him into the game. Next over bud.”

However, the change did not cause much problems though as Watson negotiated Laughlin on the day and finished with a score of 39. Now, the Cricket Australia are keen on investigating the issue. They are considering laying forth a strict integrity code that the broadcasters and commentators will have to take care of.