BCCI tweaks domestic cricket rules for 2025–26 season

BCCI: In the ongoing Indian domestic cricket season, if players use the banned saliva on the match ball, it will not be mandatorily or immediately changed, unlike last season. The two on-field umpires will jointly decide whether the ball’s condition has been significantly altered. If they believe it has, they will replace it with another ball of comparable wear.

As usual, five penalty runs will be added to the batting team’s score, and the incident will be reported to the match referee, who will take appropriate action against the offending player or players.

Applying saliva to shine the ball was prohibited after the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The International Cricket Council banned it permanently in 2022 for international matches. India, however, lifted the ban for the 2025 IPL and has now eased the restriction across all men’s, women’s, and junior/senior domestic tournaments for the 2025–26 season. Saliva helps polish one side of the ball while leaving the other rough, creating conditions for swing.

This is one of several notable changes the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has introduced to the playing conditions this year.

Concussion substitutes

Another significant change is the mandatory listing of the skills of all substitute fielders on team sheets handed to referees before the start of a match. These substitutes may include concussion replacements.

“For clarity, a concussion replacement will inherit all warnings, penalty time and suspensions that were imposed on the replaced player,” reads the rule for the junior and senior tournaments.

Deliberate short runs

In a move aimed at stopping batters from deliberately taking short runs to manipulate strike, the BCCI has given more power to fielding captains.

A rule clarification states: “A deliberate short run is an attempt for batters to appear to run more than one run, while at least one batter deliberately does not make good their ground at one end. Batters may choose to abort a run, provided the umpire believes that there was no intention by the batter concerned to deceive the umpires or to score the run in which they didn’t make their ground.”

All such runs will continue to be disallowed, with five penalty runs awarded to the fielding side. This season, however, the fielding captain will be allowed to decide which of the two batters will face the next delivery after a deliberate short run.

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More balance for bowlers

The BCCI has also amended the rules on the use of two new balls in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Until now, each new ball was used from one end, meaning 25 overs apiece in a 50-over innings.

From this season, the fielding team will use the two new balls alternately only until the 34th over. “At the end of over 34, the fielding team will choose one of the two balls from the innings to be used for all the remaining overs of the innings,” the new rule states.

An umpire noted that this move will assist pacers by allowing them to extract more swing with the older ball during the last six overs.