The International Cricket Council (ICC), on Saturday, June 10, 2023, gave an important notice about the use of reserve day in the ongoing ICC World Test Championship (WTC 2023) Final being played at the Oval in London between India and Australia.
The match has seen many losses of overs due to both teams being slow in their over rates with the ball on all four days of the match. Till lunch of Day 4, as many as 34 overs of play have already been lost despite there being no loss of time due to weather or any other reason.
With both India and Australia maintaining atrocious over-rates in the WTC final, the loss of overs is only set to worsen as the match enters its final day. This sparked conjecture and debate regarding whether the overs lost could be made up by utilizing the reserve day.
“There is a reserve day in place for the Final on Monday, but the prospect of the match going into a sixth day looks unlikely at this stage given there have been no interruptions to play over the first three-and-a-half days of the gripping contest,” ICC said.
The ICC has stated that, as of now, it seemed “unlikely” that the reserve day will be used.
The Reserve Day Is A Contingency To Recover Lost Playing Time In The Event Of Rain Or Bad Light: ICC
ICC further clarified that the reserve day will come into play if time is lost in the game and not overs.
“The Reserve Day was included in the Playing Conditions as a contingency to recover lost playing time in the event of rain or bad light disrupting play and the weather in London so far has been surprisingly good so far given it can be highly unpredictable so early in England’s summer.
“There is a small chance of showers in London on Sunday afternoon and a total of one hour of lost time can be made up on Sunday by extending the scheduled close of play. If more than an hour’s playing time is lost, then the Reserve Day will be triggered and will consist solely of the time that has been lost to rain or bad light,” ICC said in a statement.