Blake Park - The Facts, by one who was there

A dull day at the Basin Reserve test match has led commentators on radio and television to discuss the bizarre events in the Shell Cup game between Northern Districts and Wellington at Blake Park, Mount Maunganui. As CricInfo's reporter at the game, perhaps I can shed light (ho, ho) on what happened.

Northern won the game by a notional three runs under Duckworth/Lewis regulations, having taken the offer of bad light with their score on 130-9 from 33.3 overs of the available 40, needing a further 14 runs to win.

Wellington's reaction was distraught, with the players remaining in the middle after the batsmen left. Coach Vaughn Johnson was very critical of the decision, which left his team at the bottom of the Shell Cup table.

Bryan Waddle, on Radio Sport, said that it must have been pitch black for the umpires to have been so concerned about the light.

Not so. It was certainly gloomy, with a thick cloud cover, and in a first-class game the players would have left the field some time before. However, when the game ended, at 8pm, sunset was still three-quarters of an hour away.

From the press box there was still no problem in following the path of the white ball.

Daryl Tuffey - a tailender - struck a six off Jefferson in what turned out to be the penultimate over and the last act of play was Matthew Bell taking a steepling catch at mid-on to dismiss Alex Tait. Neither of these events suggested that the light was presenting a problem to the players.

The Shell Cup playing conditions state that the umpires should ignore bad light unless there is danger to the players. The only danger to the batsmen appeared to be the possibility of straining themselves in an attempt to reach the five wides bowled by Roger Twose in the last over.

The umpires were local man Peter Wright, standing in only his fourth Shell Cup game, and Billy Bowden. As a current international umpire, it is Bowden who stands in the spotlight, a position that has not left him ill at ease in the past.

By the way, Twose? It seemed an odd moment to introduce into the attack a man who had not previously bowled in the competition this season.

According to Wellington captain Matthew Bell, the introduction of Twose was in response to an ultimatum from the umpires that slow bowlers had to be used to keep play going.

The practice of introducing slow bowlers in bad light is as old as the hills, but it is unclear where the umpires acquired the powers of negotiation over these matters.

It was a daft request anyway. The only other bowlers available were Walker and Mather, neither likely to threaten life or limb with blistering pace on a sluggish surface. Besides, with no-balls for head high deliveries any attempt to have dug the ball in would have been idiocy.

In 30 years of watching cricket (much of that in England where bad light is a national obsession), I cannot remember a single occasion on which batsmen accepted the offer of light because of physical danger. The decision is always taken based on the advantage or otherwise to the batting side.

So it was here. Northern 12th man Joseph Yovich came on and off with gloves so often that he could get a job as a butler. At all stages, the Northern batsmen knew where they stood in relation to Duckworth/Lewis requirements. Had they been behind they would have agreed to play on in a coal mine. If Wellington had been in Northern's position, they would have taken exactly the same decision.

Bowden has been compared to the similarly flamboyant Dickie Bird, partly because he is a good umpire who most players hold in high respect. He should be careful that he does not acquire Bird's reputation for dwelling over every threat to the continuation of play, real or imagined, as if he were auditioning to play Hamlet.

There were more conferences than the Middle East peace process in the minutes leading up to the big decision. Those took up more time, in which it got darker, of course. An earlier announcement that the game would be played to a finish unless it rained would have been wise, sensible and saved an awful lot of fuss.

Oddly, at the end the umpires stayed in the middle for a while, optimistically gazing skyward when only a reversal of the direction in which the Earth rotates on its axis would have made it lighter.

Not that there should be much sympathy for Wellington. Their over rate was sluggish, so they were authors of their own fate, to some extent. They also hemorrhaged extras, 37 of Northern's 130, or 28% of the total.

Feel sorry only for the spectators, a few hundred hardy souls who exercised the sort of tolerance that would make Mother Teresa look an impatient woman.

Earlier they had sat through a rain delay that lasted 90 minutes longer than it should have done because the covers leaked. When they were deprived of a potentially nail biting finish most simply picked up their bags and shuffled off home. In any other sport they would have rioted if their admission money had not been returned, with apology.

At a time when it is a struggle to attract people to Shell Cup matches, this was a spectacular marketing own goal.