'Cricket itself has changed' - Holding

Minimum boundary sizes in all international matches will be increased

There is now a maximum and minimum size but the stipulation is more concerned with the minimum size. I think what everyone is trying to do is to give the bowlers an even chance. Cricket itself has changed, but the limited-overs game has changed a great deal and there's a lot more power-hitting going on now - lots more fours and sixes - and I think this has been done to encourage the bowlers who have been appearing like cannon fodder in recent times - to make the ground a bit bigger, make the batsmen take more risks, thereby encouraging the bowlers and giving them a better chance.

An additional fielder will be allowed outside the fielding circle during the second or third Powerplay in a ODI

Again this is being done to give the bowlers a better and even chance and also to encourage the spinners. We've seen in recent times that not too many captains are willing to use their spinners in the one-day games, or even if they do, they wait until the Powerplays are over so that they can have more fielders in the deep to give their spinners encouragement and also give themselves a better chance of defending a total. Hence with the availability of an extra fielder the captain has the option of bringing in his spinners early into the game rather than waiting till the Powerplays are over.

If a bowler bowls a front-foot no-ball in a ODI the following delivery will be deemed a free hit

This has been looked at because there were too many no-balls being bowled and apart from being asked to bowl them again, the bowler wasn't really getting punished. This move was brought in to make the bowlers stop bowling so many no-balls and work a bit harder on their bowling, because a free-hit can prove to be very costly. In the past the batsman did have a chance to hit the no-ball but everyone knows that it is quite difficult to hear the call and then decide what to do with the shot after hearing the call. But if you know that the next delivery is going to be a free hit then the batsman definitely has a better chance of punishing that. So I think this was done to discourage the bowling of no-balls and bring some discipline amongst the bowlers and get them to do a bit more work in that regard.

There will be a mandatory change of ball after 35 overs of each innings in a ODI

This is to bring in some sort of uniformity to the changing of the ball. We have seen, in the past, during one-day games, the ball being changed at various different times depending on where the game is being played and also on the umpires that are involved. Teams do complain about that - for example, in this World Cup we saw the ball being changed sometime during the last few overs of a game. We're trying to get rid of all that and make it a bit more uniform so that everyone knows exactly when the ball is going to be changed so as to ensure no quarrelling, no one is caught off-guard and you know exactly what is happening.