The Cricket Statistician No 195

15 • Scorecard/scorebook total innings balls The transgression of Law 41.14 awards penalty runs to the fielding side and is “attached” by the scoring software to the previous delivery which has already been recorded by scorers, so it does not increase the ball count in any of the bullet points in question. The sub-group’s recommendation is that ‘illegal balls’ count in all the bullet points above, as long as the ball has been delivered. Therefore, if a Run Out of the non- striker backing up (‘Mankad’) occurs, because the ball has not been delivered, it should therefore NOT count as a delivery in all the bullet points in question. 18 How are penalty runs treated? Is the same answer appropriate for all types of penalty, or should a different approach be adopted for some types of penalty and not for others? Much of this is dealt with by the Laws. Penalty runs for the batting side are credited as soon as the ball is dead. Penalty runs for the fielding side are added to its last completed innings or, if it has not completed an innings, to its next innings. There should be no discrimination in treatment between different types of penalty runs, but the scoring software does allow for a fuller description to be made. There is a possibility that the fielding side may be awarded penalty runs, but because of rain never bats. Law 41.18.4 says that where the fielding side has not had an innings, ‘the 5 Penalty runs shall be added to the score in its next innings.’ Following an approach by David Kendix, the MCC Laws Committee confirmed that if runs are awarded against the batting side in its first innings and the match is then abandoned, the penalty runs still count, and the opponents are 5-0. However, there is no second innings as such, and the individuals who were expected to be the opening batsmen do not have a 0* innings and there is no opening partnership. If the match is not abandoned, and a second innings takes place, it also starts at 5-0 but the first wicket partnership starts at 5-0, rather than 0-0. 19 Should penalty runs count in partnerships? There is a need for a clear definition of what is meant by a partnership. There are a number of views on this question. One suggestion was that penalty runs should only be allocated to a partnership when they related to a particular delivery. This would lead to penalty runs awarded to the fielding side not being part of the last wicket partnership (when allocated to a previous innings; e.g. the 10th wicket would fall at a total 5 (or 10 etc) below the innings total) or as part of the first wicket partnership (when allocated to a future innings; the partnership would start at 5-0 etc). Some penalty runs awarded to the batting side would be allocated to a partnership, some would not. For the period from 2003 to 2019 domestic T20 matches in the UK were awarded a 5-run penalty to the batting side before the last over if the over rate was slow. There was an argument that this should not be attributed to the partnership in place at the time; the penalty did not relate to a delivery (and hence arguably not to a partnership) and could reflect a slow over rate throughout the innings. That penalty was not now in force under amended ECB playing regulations. Different approaches for different penalties could be difficult to implement. A problem