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The Pakistan and Sri Lankan cricket boards have reached an agreement not to use the Super-sub rule during their upcoming three-match one-day series from March 17.

The two countries play their games on the 17th, 19th and 21st of March in Colombo and have agreed that the Super-sub rule will feature in none of these matches. The bilateral decision has been made after a recommendation made by the International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executives last month in Dubai that the trial of the ‘super-sub’ playing condition should be discontinued.

However, the decision will only be implemented after the recommendation goes to the Executive Board of the ICC for ratification later this month. “Pakistan and Sri Lanka believe that as the Super-sub experimental rule is going to be discontinued from later this month, there is no purpose using it in the coming series. Many other countries have also taken such bilateral decisions in their matches,” an official of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said.

ICC’s General Manager Cricket David Richardson said that the playing condition (super-sub) had not achieved what it set out to deliver. “The intention of Sunil Gavaskar and the panel of former players on the ICC Cricket Committee, which recommended the trial of this playing condition, was to encourage teams to make greater use of all-rounders in the ODI game,” he said.

“In practice, teams have elected to nominate a specialist player as the substitute and this is placing undue importance on winning the toss,” added Richardson. “There is no desire to create a situation where 12 players are used to do the job of 11 so we did not support the alternate view of allowing substitutes to be nominated after the toss. The proposal that the playing condition should be discontinued has been endorsed by the CEC and will now go to the Board for ratification,” he said.

If the Board accepts this recommendation, the ‘super-sub’ playing condition will no longer apply to series that start after 21 March 2006. A PCB source said the Pakistan and Sri Lankan boards had also reached understanding on substitute fielders and appealing for close catches.

Source: The News

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