Last night's farce

I'm up in Scotland at the Amateur Championship (golf), but got back to my hotel to watch the end of last night's one-day international at Edgbaston. Yet again, players and officials seemed to forget that their primary purpose in life is to entertain the public, those poor saps whose money goes into the game and helps to pay for Kevin Pietersen's future children's future school fees (sorry to pick on KP but he brought it up first).

For those who don't know the story, it was a pretty grotty day and there were several interruptions. Eventually the match was reduced to 23 overs and it was set for a thrilling finish, with New Zealand 127 for two after 19 overs chasing a revised target of 160. Then it started to rain. To be fair to the umpires, it started to rain quite heavily. And so they came off.

But 20 overs are needed to constitute a game and so New Zealand were left stranded six balls short of being able to push for the win. Or, to look at it another way, England were six balls away from going 2-0 up in the series. This point has been underplayed, I think.

New Zealand needed to reach 134 for two by the end of the 20th over to be ahead of the Duckworth-Lewis par, so they needed six runs in six balls. It says something about England's lack of confidence that they preferred to hold up play in the hope of getting a no result rather than trust to James Anderson, or whoever, to bowl six tight balls. Yes, Brendon McCullum and Scott Styris were set and could have ended the game with one hit, but if a wicket had fallen, remember, the D/L par would have gone higher.

Ian Botham on Sky was getting wound up in typical style about the half-hour break that they had between innings, banging on about the same point for almost as long as the break itself. He is right to a degree, but he ignored various other reasons for why the match was not completed.

1) Yes, it was raining heavily, but the umpires spent at least two minutes after the 19th over finished discussing whether it was raining enough. They should have been doing everything they could to get that 20th over in, including hurrying up the fielders and taking their own positions quickly. Once the 20th over was out of the way, then they could afford to debate the conditions.

2) No one, as far as I can ascertain, has mentioned the fact that the previous over we had a three-minute break for the TV umpire to decide whether or not Anderson had tapped the boundary rope with his toe as he scooped back the ball. This may sound like a blinkered Englishman speaking, but it was clear from the first replay that it would be too close to call. Common sense should have ruled an immediate "not proven" and given the benefit of doubt to the superb bit of fielding rather than wasting three minutes to decide that we couldn't quite tell. This happens so often and it frustrates the spectators immensely. The Law should be changed so that a four is not given unless the ball itself touches the rope.

3) England's slowness in getting through the overs was appalling. Nineteen overs in an hour and 25 minutes: that's little more than 13.5 overs an hour. They will probably get fined, but the umpires should be given greater sanctions against slow play. In tennis and archery, you get docked points if you are not ready when play is due to recommence. Perhaps cricket should bring in a rule that a bowler has to start his run-up for the first ball of an over within 30 seconds of the previous over completing.

4) Half an hour after play was called off it was sunny again. But the players couldn't come out because the official cut-off time of 7.30 had been reached. This is purely TV-driven. Perhaps Botham should have a word with his own bosses. Whatever happened to the days when matches used to go on until 9pm if the light was good enough to allow a result?

Comments

[Peter McGuinness]

Patrick,

Until the English propensity to 'not lose' is overcome by a stronger desire to win, this kind of thing will continue to happen.

An England team pressing for victory would have been sprinting through the final overs, aware that the weather was closing. Glass half full/glass half empty? This outcome would have been interpreted as a 'missed win' in Australia, rather than as 'an avoided defeat'.

It's all in the perception. Which outlook is correct? Is there a 'correct' philosophy under the circumstances, or are we all slaves to the peculiarities of a own national psyches?

It's difficult to call in truth. For example 'not losing' mentality works wonderfully well in Rugby, wouldn't you agree Patrick?

[David Barry]

I'm glad that there are people out there who think that 13.5 overs per hour is appallingly slow. I saw someone on Cricinfo the other day say that 14 was acceptable these days.

Both sides in the IPL final were at or worse than 11.5!

[SanjayN]

Patrick, I still recall a conversation I had as a teenager (many yrs ago, sadly) with a football loving school friend who thought cricket was stupid because the players ran off at the slightest hint of rain. I found it difficult to defend the game over this matter despite his exaggerated criticism. But I'm sure there are kids out there today who must be shaking their head.

The 2002 Champions trophy Final between SL and India in Lanka is one of the worst examples of TV scheduling overcoming common sense. After the day-night final was washed out at the completion of the SL inns, the match was to be replayed the following day, a reserve day. Forecasts predicted violent rainfall beginning around 7pm but the geniuses insisted on the game being a day-night affair due to the God that is TV. Again Lanka batted their 50 overs, they had a break between inns, India batted about 10 overs and the predicted heavy rains came. The trophy was shared and from the Indian point of view they felt hard done by. The match should have been played as day affair on the reserve day given the strong forecast.

BTW, expect the SL-India Test series, starting in a few weeks, to be seriously affected by heavy rains. Playing cricket in Sri Lanka in the month of July is plain stupid. It's only a matter of time before a player is overcome with dehydration and left in a serious condition.