England and Australia arguably played one of the most competitive Ashes series since 2005. The series ended at 2-2 at the Kennington Oval in London with Stuart Broad drawing curtains on his career on a high. Two days after all the dust settled down, the International Cricket Council (ICC) came down hard at both teams over slow over-rate offence across all five Test matches.
While Australia have been docked 10 points alone for the Manchester Test (fourth Test) for being 10 overs short in the allocated time, England have lost a massive 19 points for poor over-rate in four out of five Test matches. Accordingly, Australia's PCT has been dropped to 30 despite winning two Tests and drawing one Test. Perhaps, England have suffered and have PCT of only 15 despite putting up a brilliant show in the series. Perhaps, they have gone below West Indies in the points table who have not even won a single Test so far in this cycle.
Reactions from the England camp are still awaited but meanwhile, Australia opener Usman Khawaja has come down hard at the ICC. He pointed out the fact that Australia didn't even get a chance to bowl in the second innings due to rain over the last two days of the Manchester Test. The visitors bowled 107.4 overs in the first innings and were found 10 overs short.
"Don't even get the chance to bowl in the second innings at Manchester due to 2 days of rain and @ICC still issue fines and take 10 WTC points of us for slow over rates! That makes a lot of sense," Khawaja wrote on Twitter.
Notably, only recently the fines on the players were reduced to five percent of the match fee for each over bowled short. However, ICC has stayed put with the rules of docking one WTC point for each over bowled short in the stipulated period.
