How do the playing conditions change the Laws on bad light and an unfit ground?
Rule- Gauteng
- Central Gauteng Lions
- Club cricket
- Senior
- MCC Laws of Cricket
- 2025/26
- Umpires
The CGL 2025/26 playing conditions replace Laws 2.7 and 2.8:
- You are the sole judges of whether the ground, weather and light are fit. (Without official umpires, the captains decide, not the umpires they appointed.) Take CGL and CGLCUA policies on ground, weather and light into account.
- Suspending play: if you both agree conditions are so bad that there's an obvious and foreseeable risk to a player's or umpire's safety, making play unreasonable or dangerous, suspend play immediately, or don't let it start or restart.
- One umpire is enough: play is suspended, or not restarted, if either official umpire thinks conditions are unfit.
- Dangerous means an actual and foreseeable safety risk. Unreasonable means no safety risk, but it wouldn't be sensible to play.
- Wet ball and grass: a wet, slippery ball and grass are not enough on their own. Conditions are unreasonable if the ground is so wet that the bowler has no reasonable foothold, fielders can't move freely, or batters can't play their shots or run.
- Shadows on the pitch from the stadium or any permanent object are disregarded.
- During a suspension, inspect as often as appropriate, and call the players back as soon as you both agree conditions are suitable.
- Intervals: if play was going on up to a scheduled interval, it resumes after the interval unless either umpire agrees conditions have become unsafe or unreasonable.
No extra time is added for delays. Lost time is made up by reducing overs as set out in each format's conditions.
Added 22 Oct 2026