In this article, we will learn about the incident in Essex County Cricket Club.
In April 2024, during a match between Essex County Cricket Club and Nottinghamshire in the county championship, a batsman from Essex used a non-compliant bat in the match. Feroze Khushi used an unfit bat in his innings which led to a deduction of 12 points for Essex County Cricket Club in the race county championship title race.
Essex County Cricket Club penalized due to Feroze Khushi’s misconduct
The independent panel of the Cricket Discipline Commission issued a penalty of twelve points to Essex County Cricket after the batter Feroze Khushi and the club admitted to using a non-compliant bat which breaches the ECB directives of 3.2 and 3.3.
These directives state that a team player shall be fairly participating in the game on and off the field without breaching the code of conduct and using the proper certified sports utilities. Umpires suspected Firoze of using an unfit and asked to change it when he was on 21 off 27 balls.
Although Essex had a 254-run victory in that match but the umpires stated that the bat used by Feroze was not lying in the specific dimension of a legal bat. According to the laws a bat’s gauge has to be within a certified limit. The width of the bat can be a maximum of 10.8cm, its depth should be limited to 6.7 cm whereas its edges can not be more than 4 cm.
Now Essex country sanctioned an appeal for dismissing this penalty and that Firoze used a legal bat by Gray Nicolas but their appeal got denied and now the club was levied with a 12-point deduction in the points table of the County Championship. Firoze Khushi was issued a two-year ban from playing cricket as well for failing the bat gauge test.
Keith Fletcher, the president of the county’s side said “Gray-Nicolls have backed us all the way. There are several different bat gauges and they say they followed the rules,” said Fletcher.
“I assume the ECB thought this was cheating and the appeal panel is trying to flex its muscles. Feroze does not believe he did anything wrong and the whole side has been penalized not just one player.” said Keith Fletcher.
The Essex County Cricket Club submitted an appeal regarding concerns of significant and material procedural misconduct that impacted on the sanction, which was supported by the ECB as well. However, despite of getting the support and raising concerns for inconsistencies with the compliance of bat gauges in line with the relevant MCC laws of cricket, their appeal was unsuccessful.
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