The European Cricket Series T10 tournament has an innovative law to declare a winner in the event of a tied game: the golden ball.

The ‘Golden ball’ is an alternative law to the Super Over and eliminates the confusion of having more tied results in the game like the 2019 World Cup final between England and New Zealand. England were then declared winners on account of scoring more boundaries, but since then the ICC has introduced multiple Super Overs until a result is produced with the same players not allowed to be part of the following Super Over. This complexity is eliminated with the interesting concept in the ECS.

What is the ‘Golden ball’?

If the game ends in a tie, the chasing side will get one additional ball with the team needing a pre-set two or more runs to win the match. The tie-breaker ball will be bowled three minutes after the tied game and the same bowler who bowled the final delivery will have to bowl the Golden ball, unless of course if he is injured.

It is different for the batting side, though, and any batsman who hasn’t been dismissed in the game till that point can take strike for the final ball even if they were yet to bat in the game or retired out earlier in the game. If the chasing team is bowled out, the last man not dismissed takes strike and the last man to be dismissed will takes the non-striker’s end.

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Other rules such as no-ball, wides and free hits apply to this additional delivery too.

In the event that the chasing team scores one run off the Golden Ball, the bowling side will win the match. The chasing team needs to score two or more runs to win the match. Anything less and they lose the match. If the Golden Ball cannot be played owing to weather conditions or for any other reason, the match will be declared a tie. If it happens in a knockout game, league stage points and net run rate are used to declare a winner. In the rare event that all these are same too, the winner will be declared by picking lots!

The idea emanated from ECL commentator and presenter Vinny Sandhu.

“People are evenly split when asked who they think the Golden Ball favours, which probably shows it’s pretty even,” he had said after the new law caught attention. The first-ever Golden ball was played between Madrid United and Levante in 2020.

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