You will be punished for making mistakes after victoryImage Credit source: PTI

Cricket match is going on. 2 runs are needed to win and only one ball is left. The batsman scores 2 runs on this last ball. In this way the team wins the match. But then a decision of the umpire overturns the result and the winning team loses the match. If you are thinking that this cannot happen. How can a winning team lose a match? But this is going to become a reality in the coming time because a big, historic and revolutionary change has been announced in the laws of cricket. Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the law maker of cricket and its patron body, has announced that even after the match is over, the winning team can lose the match due to penalty runs.

On February 3, MCC announced a total of 73 changes in different laws of cricket, which will come into effect from October 1 this year. Although these have not been passed by the ICC till now, but as always, the laws made or changed by MCC come into force immediately because the oldest and first laws of this game were made by this organization and since then it is in charge of them. But is this a law by which a team can lose even a won match?

In fact, there is a provision regarding 'penalty run' in the list of laws of cricket published by MCC. This is mentioned in law number 41.17. An important change has been made in 41.17.2, which is related to penalty run at the end of the match. According to this, if the result of a match is declared but before the umpires leave the field, any team violates any law, then the umpire can give a penalty run against that team. MCC has also given an example to explain this. Suppose, if a batsman makes the team win by scoring a run on the last ball of the match and punches the bowler in the face while celebrating, then penalty runs will be imposed on that team and it will lose the match.

There is another aspect to this also. If the match ends before the last ball but the winning team is penalized, due to which the result of the match changes. In such a situation, if there is a possibility of continuing the match, the game will be completed. That is, if the team wins in the 49th over but the result of the match is reversed due to penalty runs, then the game will be continued from there. During this time, if any team or both the teams are found breaking any kind of law, then penalties will continue to be imposed in that order.