QUITE a few matches recently had problems for teams with regards time allowed to bowl their overs to.

If the side bowling first fails to start the 50th over in three hours and five minutes, then they can only bat for the number of overs bowled inside this time limit.

In second teams, it is two hours and 48 minutes, for the 45th over, but the same batting rule applies.

If the side bowling second is slow with their over rate then five runs are added to the side batting second for every over after the time limit.

What causes slow over rates? Well, there are numerous things.

Captains constantly changing field positions, bowlers taking a long time to bowl an over, long discussions between a captain with his bowler, the ball being passed back to the bowler by a long-winded route, batsmen not ready or asking to change gloves – it is a long list.

Many times I have heard a captain say “hope you stop the clock”.

Well, locally, 10 minutes has been built into the time limit to allow for looking for balls, two drinks intervals etc., so it is player-led the umpire has to deal with.

The umpire has the power to do something about time-wasting both by the fielding side and the batting side.

Take the fielding side – if an umpire considers an over to be taking an unnecessary length of time by either the player or the captain they will call dead ball if the ball is in play.

They will inform the other umpire and warn the captain, giving him a first then final warning.

A further occurrence will lead to five penalty runs being awarded to the batting side if the offence occurred between overs. If during an over, the captain will be told to suspend the bowler immediately and a report will be sent in.

For the batting team, if batsmen have a chat between overs, go down and lightly prod the pitch in between balls or ask for a change of gloves that is all okay apart from taking an excessive length of time.

A batsman should be ready to receive the ball once the bowler is ready to start his run up.

If the umpires decide time-wasting is happening, then both batsmen are warned which applies throughout the innings, meaning each incoming batsman is informed.

A further offence by any batsman will lead to five penalty runs being awarded to the fielding side.