The reason for punishing wides more severely is an odd one. The cricket committee have been tackling the growing practice in cham- pionship matches of left-arm spin bowlers - and, very occasionally, leg-spinners - operating from over the wicket and aiming for the rough outside the legs of the right-handers.
Unless batsmen are to take major risks by hitting against the often considerable spin, their only counter is to pad the ball away. In the case of Dermot Reeve last season, this was accompanied by letting go of the bat in case the ball should pop up off the pad and hit gloves or bat.
It is a genuine cause for concern but I am not sure that this idea will help much. How are umpires to decide whether a ball pitching some 2ft outside the leg stump and then turning - in the case of Shane Warne, sufficiently far to sometimes hit the off stump - is a genuine wide? Preferable, perhaps, would be to allow leg before decisions to balls pitching outside leg stump if the ball has been delivered from over the wicket. Negative bowling would then become positive.
Other cricket matters on the agenda are less contentious. As revealed in The Electronic Telegraph a month ago, the perceived disadvantage England teams faced in home Tests last season by using a ball not suited to their bowlers is about to be removed. Assuming ratification by the Board, England, like other countries, will decide at the outset of a home series which ball will be used for all the Tests.
England's captain and coach, Mike Atherton and David Lloyd, were understandably unhappy when Atherton kept losing the toss with the Indian and Pakistan captains for the choice between the two English-made balls. For better or worse, the Duke ball rather than the Reader, which both Mohammad Azharuddin and Wasim Akram preferred, will no doubt be selected for the Ashes series.
The Board will also be asked to agree that there should be an inner 15-yard circle in next season's Benson and Hedges Cup, to make clear the limit for the two stationary close fielders required by the rules for one-day internationals. A new formula for recalculating the target for the side batting second in rainaffected one-day games is being tried this winter - initially by England in Zimbabwe - and will be adopted if it works more fairly than other methods.
The finer details of the administrative exchange will be the main business for an organisation who, over the last 28 years, have filled the MCC committee room to bursting three times a year with attendances of at least 40. The difficulty so unwieldy a body have had in reaching a consensus on matters of national significance, and of taking quick decisions, is one of the reasons why a single body responsible for cricket at all levels is required.
The last piece of the new body, inevitably something of a fudge, should be agreed today when the constitution of the Recreational Forum is formally adopted. The RF and the First Class Forum, responsible to the new 16-man Management Board for amateur and professional cricket respectively, already have chairmen, newly elected by the counties. David Morgan will head the FCF; John Pickup, chairman of Cheshire and the Minor Counties Cricket Association, becomes chief representative for youth and club cricket.
Two recent Board meetings have ensured what should be a smooth transition on Jan 1. All but three members of The Management Board, chaired by Lord MacLaurin, with Tim Lamb and Cliff Barker as chief and deputy chief executives, are already elected. Peter Edwards of Essex, Alan Wheelhouse of Nottinghamshire and Tony Cross of Warwickshire have emerged from recent elections as the representatives of county cricket on the Board.
MacLaurin and Lamb are automatic members of the England Management Committee, who will look after all aspects of international cricket and who will become the crucial cog in the new machine.
Chaired by Bob Bennett, their other members will be David Acfield, another automatic inclusion as chairman of cricket, and the newly elected John Barclay and Brian Bolus, who finished ahead of Dennis Amiss and J T Murray. One of their first concerns will be to find the right man to chair the England selectors next year.