Essex has been deducted 12 factors after England’s Cricket Regulator discovered its participant Feroze Khushi used an outsized bat earlier this season, the County Championship facet stated on Wednesday.
In a match towards Nottinghamshire in April, Khushi’s bat manufactured by Grey-Nicolls was examined by umpires throughout his innings and it failed a bat-gauge check.
Khushi scored 21 off 27 in that innings earlier than he was requested to exchange his bat. Essex went on to win the match by 254 runs, incomes 20 factors within the course of.
“Essex submitted an attraction, elevating considerations of serious and materials procedural irregularities that impacted upon the sanction, which was supported by the Cricket Regulator,” Essex stated in an announcement.
“Considerations about inconsistencies with the compliance of bat gauges in step with the related MCC Legal guidelines of Cricket was additionally highlighted, nevertheless regardless of these considerations, the attraction was unsuccessful.”
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The factors deduction successfully means Essex’s possibilities of profitable the County Championship title are all however over because the season attracts to a detailed this month and the county facet’s president Keith Fletcher slammed the nation’s cricket board (ECB).
“Grey-Nicolls have backed us all the way in which. There are a number of totally different bat gauges and so they say they adopted the principles,” Fletcher advised The Instances.
“I assume the ECB thought this was dishonest and the attraction panel is attempting to flex its muscle tissue. Feroze doesn’t imagine he did something flawed and the entire facet has been penalised, not simply the one participant.”
Based on the legal guidelines of the sport, a bat’s width can’t be greater than 10.8 cm, the depth can’t be greater than 6.7 cm and the sides can’t exceed 4 cm. The bats should additionally go a bat-gauge check.
In 2022, Durham had been equally docked 10 factors when Australia batter Nic Maddinson’s bat failed a bat-gauge check after they performed Derbyshire.