{"id":418060,"date":"2026-01-17T01:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T01:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/418060\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T01:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T01:09:09","slug":"call-for-a-bit-of-devine-intervention-in-cricket-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/418060\/","title":{"rendered":"Call for a bit of Devine intervention in cricket rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Zealand captain Sophie Devine has called for a review of fielding rules and boundary lengths in women’s cricket, saying current conditions \u200dgive batters too much of an advantage.<\/p>\n

Under current rules, no more than four fielders are \u200ballowed outside the restricted area in non-powerplay overs, a regulation aimed at producing more boundaries and \u2060giving fans more entertainment with higher scores.<\/p>\n

In the Women’s Premier League, the maximum boundary length is set at 60m, while in the men’s tournament it can reach up to 77m.<\/p>\n

\"Sophie<\/p>\n

Sophie Devine believes batters are favoured by current rules in the Women’s Premier League | Photo: Linda Higginson\/AAP<\/p>\n

“There needs to be a serious look at the four-fielders-out rule. We are pretty close to \u200cgoing in line \u200bwith the men and having five fielders out on the boundary,” Devine \u200dtold reporters in Bengaluru on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“We’ve all seen the power that the women’s game has got now, and I don’t think having five fielders out would make a hindrance to the possibility and opportunities to score more runs.”<\/p>\n

Devine, who was signed by Gujarat Giants in the 2026 WPL auction and ranks among the league’s top \u200cfive run-scorers and wicket-takers this season, said the regulations made it difficult for bowlers.<\/p>\n

“The balance is distorted towards \u200bbatters, especially when you’re playing on wickets that are so flat and offering not \u200dtoo much for the bowlers,” added Devine, who also plays for the Perth Scorchers in the WBBL competition in Australia.<\/p>\n

The allrounder also addressed the rising use of the “retired-out” strategy in the WPL, which gained attention after Gujarat’s Ayushi Soni and \u200bUP \u200bWarriorz’s Harleen Deol exited mid-innings in \u200bthe tournament’s opening week.<\/p>\n

“At the end of the \u200bday, those decisions are always made with the team coming first and what’s going to be best for the team to be able to gain momentum,” she said, expressing her preference for this strategy over the impact player rule, which allows teams to substitute a player mid-match.<\/p>\n

“I like the idea that you can do all skills, or certainly bat, and still be able \u200dto go on the field.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand captain Sophie Devine has called for a review of fielding rules and boundary lengths in women’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-418060","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}