The MCC World Cricket Committee has floated the idea of introducing a “shot clock” to the sport that would cut down the amount of time wasted between balls and overs to counter the slowing pace of matches.

According to this MCC advisory panel, which is made up of current and former players, over rates in Test cricket are at their slowest for 11 years, while those for Twenty20 matches are at an all-time low since the format’s introduction in 2003.

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While financial punishments are already in place for slow play, and five runs can be docked for a slow Twenty20 innings, they remain at the discretion of officials. This proposed solution is for a time limit that ensures players are ready to start the action, be it before a ball, over or after the fall of a wicket, with on-the-spot run penalties if not.

Ricky Ponting, the former Australia captain who sits on the MCC panel, said: “It probably seems a little extreme, the idea of the shot clock, but most of the members of the committee and other committees have been talking about declining over rates for 20 years and once again this year in all three formats the over rates have been in decline.

“It’s basically the dead time in the game. So at the end of the over, the fielders and bowlers have to be back in position and that’s non-negotiable. The same with the new batsman coming in, the bowling team have to be ready when he gets to the crease. We are of the belief that a ‘there and then’ run penalty in the game would be definitely worth looking at. You would imagine then the captains would take a huge responsibility in making sure their players are ready to go.”

The MCC Cricket Committee, which holds no powers per se but can inform updates to laws and playing conditions, has also been assured that English cricket’s new 100-ball tournament will still be “a recognisable form” of the sport by the England and Wales Cricket Board. While the full details of the controversial competition, The Hundred, remain a work in progress, the ECB has confirmed to the panel it will have innings made up of five-ball overs bowled in blocks of two from each end and reports of 12-15 players in fact reflect an idea to have substitute fielders, rather than additional bowlers or batsmen.

John Stephenson, MCC’s head of cricket, said: “As custodians of the laws, what we’re concerned about is if you modify the game too much it ceases to look like cricket.

“What we heard from [ECB tournament director] Sanjay Patel was quite reassuring. At the moment, as far as I can make out, they’ll have 11 batsmen, they won’t have ‘overs’ per se but 100 balls, 20 balls per bowler. Apart from that, it’ll look like a normal game of cricket.”