Lahore: Aleem Dar is assigned to five of the six upcoming white ball matches between Pakistan and Zimbabwe, which will take place from October 30th to November 10th. The official press conference stated that the three ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Super League matches above 50 will be played in Rawalpindi, while Lahore will host three matches above 20.
Aleem, the three-time ICC referee of the year from the ICC elite team, will participate in all three ODIs and the first and third T20Is, and he will become the third referee for the second T20I.
ICC has appointed Professor Javed Malik, a member of the ICC International Competition Referees Group, as the referee of the series.
According to the ICC’s interim competition rules, Aleem and Javed will become the match officials appointed by the ICC. PCB has appointed referees from the ICC International Competition Official Team, namely Ahsan Raza, Asif Yaqoob, Rashid Riaz and Shozab Raza.
When Ahsan Raza appears in court to preside over the second T20I, he will be the first referee to complete the T20I for half a century. Aleem Dar is second with 46 games, while Shozab Raza is tied for fourth with South Africa’s Shaun George with 36 games.
Ahsan is a former top-notch cricketer who started his international refereeing career at the ODI held at the Sharjah Cricket Ground between Afghanistan and Canada in February 2010. In late October of that year, he hosted his first T20I match, when Pakistan played South Africa in Abu Dhabi. Overall, the 46-year-old has participated in 85 international games.
Ban on applying saliva to the ball: Players will not be permitted to use saliva to shine the ball. If a player does apply saliva to the ball, the umpires will manage the situation with some leniency during an initial period of adjustment for the players, but subsequent instances will result in the team receiving a warning.
A team can be issued up to two warnings per innings but repeated use of saliva on the ball will result in a 5-run penalty to the batting side. Whenever saliva is applied to the ball, the umpires will be instructed to clean the ball before play recommences.
Non-neutral umpires: The requirement to appoint neutral match officials will be temporarily removed from the playing conditions for all international formats owing to the current logistical challenges with international travel. The ICC will be able to appoint locally based match officials from the ICC Elite Panel of Match Officials and the ICC International Panel of Match Officials.
Additional DRS reviews: The CEC has also confirmed an additional unsuccessful DRS review for each team in each innings of a match, keeping in mind that there may be less experienced umpires on duty at times. This will increase the number of unsuccessful appeals per innings for each team to two for the white-ball formats.
The ICC Cricket Operations team will support Match Referees when processing Code of Conduct breaches and a neutral Elite Panel match referee will conduct any hearing remotely via video link.
