The USA were punished with five penalty runs during their ICC T20 World Cup Group A match against India in New York on Wednesday and became the first team to be penalized under the stop-clock rule.
The stop-clock rule was trialed in international matches from December last year and was made a permanent fixture by the ICC in international T20 cricket at the end of its trial period in April 2024.
The rule is used to regulate the time elapsed between overs, with teams having 60 seconds to start the next over.
A bowling team will receive two warnings if they go over time during their fielding innings, and will be handed a five-run penalty for every further violation, as per ICC.
USA became the first team to receive a run penalty when they made a third violation during the low-scoring contest with India at the Nassau County International Stadium in New York.
“Three times they have exceeded the sixty seconds they have allotted to get through between overs. So they have been going slow, moving slow, maybe overthinking due to the pressure in this game,” said commentator Ebony Rainford-Brent said.
“Maybe sometimes that is the difference between two sides. India has been there and done that at so many tournaments. Aaron Jones is living out his best at the moment, with two wins, kind of up there at the top of the group with four points and hoping, maybe overthinking about strategy. You cannot afford that in this format,” he added.
USA was well on the backfoot when hit by the penalty in the match, with India on 76/3 and requiring 35 in the last five overs to wrap up the game.
Finally, riding on Suryakumar Yadav’s unbeaten fifty and aided by those extra five runs, India steered to victory. Continuing their unbeaten streak, the Men in Blue also advanced to the Super 8 stage in the T20 WC.
“It is a new rule that has come up,” former India international and ICC commentator Dinesh Karthik explained.
“There’s been a lot of pressure on the bowling team captain – India just got away with it in the game against Pakistan, where they had two faults and the third one would have been a strike. But now America have definitely done this to themselves,” he added.
Coming to the match, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma won the toss and opted to bowl first. The USA put on a fighting total of 110/8 in their 20 overs, with Nitish Kumar (27 in 23 balls, with two fours and a six) and Steven Taylor (24 in 30 balls, with two sixes) playing crucial knocks.
Arshdeep (4/9) and Hardik Pandya (2/14) were the top bowlers for India. Axar Patel also got a wicket.
In the run-chase of 111, India lost skipper Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli for single-digit scores and Rishabh Pant (18 in 20 balls, with a four and six). India was left struggling at 39/3 in 7.3 overs. Following this, Suryakumar Yadav (50 in 49 balls, with two fours and two sixes) and Shivam Dube (31* in 35 balls, with a four and six) stitched a match-winning 72-run stand for the fourth wicket.
Saurabh Netravalkar (2/18) was the pick of the bowlers for the USA.
Arshdeep took home the ‘Player of the Match’ award for his fiery spell.
