Surrey receives 12-run penalty in NatWest T20 Blast against Somerset

While the International sides have been in news for suffering fines and bans for maintaining slow over-rate in the last couple of weeks, Surrey, the England county side, received a 12-run penalty during their NatWest T20 Blast game against Somerset at The Oval on Sunday.

Surrey posted 181/6 after batting first with the help of Aaron Finch’s 2nd fifty of the tournament. Somerset were never in the chase as they kept losing wickets but the New Zealand all-rounder Corey Anderson kept on his fight to take the game closer.

Anderson hit a couple of sixes in the 18th over and it earned them 16 runs when they needed 51 from the last 3. At that point, the umpires called the 12-run penalty against Surrey as the home side still had to bowl 2 overs even after completion of scheduled time. This eased down the equation for Somerset as they now needed 23 runs in the last two overs but Anderson couldn’t take his side over the winning line as he was run out for 81 runs trying for a second run when 8 runs needed from 4 balls.

According to the Law 16.6 in England and Wales Cricket Board’s (ECB) playing conditions for the domestic T20 competition, the batting side will be credited 6 runs for the every over the bowling falls short of the scheduled 75 minutes time.

The law states:

• All sides are expected to be in a position to bowl the first ball of the last of their 20 overs within 1 hour 15 minutes playing time.
• In the event of them failing to do so, the full quota of overs will be completed, and the batting side will be credited with 6 runs for every whole over that has not been bowled.
• If the side batting second is credited with runs in this way and this consequently takes their score to or past their victory target then the match shall be deemed to be won by the side batting second.
• All penalties in this regard will be imposed immediately the ball first becomes dead after the scheduled or re-scheduled cessation time for the innings.

The scheduled time was completed when Surrey were about to bowl the 19th over of the Somerset innings, the batting side was awarded 12 runs; six runs for the each of the two overs left over to be bowled.

This wasn’t the first time where the bowling side were penalised by runs for maintaining slow over-rate in the NatWest T20 Blast. During last year’s T20 game between Lancashire and Nottinghamshire, the home side Nottingham were chasing 185 and were 8 down for 170 needing 15 from the last over. As Lancashire fell one over short of the scheduled time, Nottingham needed 9 runs from last 6 balls which they chased down in 4 balls.

Back in 2015, Durham were chasing 23 runs in the last 2 overs against Nottinghamshire with Umar Akmal hitting 20 runs including 3 sixes in the first 5 balls of the 19th over. With 3 more runs still to be played for, the Umpires intervened and announced 6 runs penalty against Nottingham who couldn’t begin the 20th over inside the scheduled time and Durham were declared winners as after the addition of 6 runs they have got past the required target.

Lancashire were on the receiving end in 2014 as well in their home game against Yorkshire, who won by 5 wickets chasing 15 runs in the last over with 6 runs added as penalty.