ICC favours unified cricket family in India

Mumbai, Oct 16 (UNI) The International Cricket Council (ICC) today expressed hope that the proposed talks between the BCCI and the ICL would lead to a unified cricket family in the country.

Talking to mediapersons here, ICC General Manager-Cricket, David Richardson said that the BCCI had broached the subject at a recent meeting in Dubai and said it would talk with ICL. The move would be good for the game, he added.

Replying to a question, he said the ICC had no move to reduce the 90 over per day norm for tests. The average per hour comes to 13.8 overs and this should be possible by any team he said adding ''we do not want to go any lower''. He said that in the 1960s and 1970s the norm was 18 overs an hour. But the game has taken a different turn in modern times where one finds the average run per over hovered between four and five runs. This necessitated changes in field placements and also recovering ball hit to the stands, he added.

On the issue of the 50 over ODIs being split into two innings, he said that atleast two countries, Australia and England would be shortly experimenting this and even the Indian Criclet League in India is planning to implement it he said adding ''let us wait for the outcome'' He also welcomed the move of India and South Africa to have exchange of Umpires for domestic current from 2009 stating that this would help foreign umpires to know the local conditions better.

UNI VK AB AB GC1842