Scorers accountable for T20 final chaos - USACA board member

Rizwan Mohammed, a board member of the USA Cricket Association, defended the actions of the on-field umpires and acknowledged that a lack of communication from the official scorers was the main reason for confusion in the final of last weekend's USACA T20 National Championship in Florida.

South East defeated USA Development XI in controversial circumstances last Sunday after being awarded five penalty runs. According to the live update feed on USACA's official Facebook page, USA Development XI won the game taking the winning single off the final delivery of the match, but about 40 minutes later it replaced that announcement with: "UPDATE: The USA Development team was penalized 5 runs for a batsman obstructing the fielder. The 2015 USACA National T20 Champion is the South East Region!"

Rizwan was inside the scoring box for the match, updating the online electronic scoring system. David Maitland, the South East Region secretary, was designated as the official scorer for the match and was keeping score by hand as well as working the electronic scoreboard at the Central Broward Regional Park.

The on-field umpires for the final were two of the region's most experienced - Hubert Smythe, representing Cayman Islands, has stood in every ICC Americas Division One tournament since 2004 and has officiated in other ICC global events, such as 2009 ICC WCL Division Three in Argentina and the 2009 ICC U-19 World Cup Qualifier in Canada; Mohamed Baksh is a WICB-certified umpire who has more than 30 years of experience officiating in the West Indies, most recently in last year's WICB U-19 Regional Tournament.

In a conference call with ESPNcricinfo this week, Baksh said that a formal warning was issued to opening batsman Nisarg Patel for running on the pitch. ESPNcricinfo spoke to several players on both teams, including at least two players from the USA Development XI who confirmed that upon arriving at the crease after the fall of a wicket later in the game, the umpires had immediately informed them that the side had earlier been issued a warning for running on the pitch and another transgression would result in a five-run penalty.

On the last ball of the 18th over in the USA Development XI chase, Baksh says he signaled for five penalty runs to be awarded to the fielding side after batsmen Andre Lindsay and Keneil Irving violated earlier warnings, and ran down the pitch while attempting to complete two runs, which were also disallowed. Rizwan says that both he and Maitland saw the signal for five penalty runs but were unsure which team the penalty runs had been assessed to. The third umpire, Neil Jamula, was stationed in a separate area of the ground so the scorers were unable to get an immediate clarification. Rather than wait to get a clarification before proceeding, a flickering light signal was given by Maitland from the scorebox to the umpires as an acknowledgement because Rizwan says they did not want to cause any delays.

"We did not want the game to stop," Rizwan said. "The game was continuing and anything that we had for someone to go down and check with the umpires would have caused the game to stop for a few minutes and we didn't want to do that. Definitely there were some gaps, there's no question about that but nothing was done intentionally wrong."

Because they did not seek an immediate clarification, Rizwan says that Maitland chose not to update the stadium's electronic scoreboard until they spoke with the umpires after the end of the match to be completely sure which side had been given the penalty runs. Baksh says both batsmen, and South East captain Steven Taylor, were informed at the time of the penalty that it was USA Development XI who had been penalized. However, both Baksh and South East coach Mark Johnson confirmed they never saw the scoreboard change to show an adjusted target from 113 to 118.

"I saw the signal for penalty runs and shouted out to the field to ask Taylor which team had been penalised," Johnson told ESPNcricinfo. "He told me it wasn't us and it was the other team. Heading into the final over I looked at the target on the scoreboard and even though it showed 21 runs to win, we knew it was 26 because it was also still showing our total as 112."

Players on the USA Development XI acknowledge receiving warnings but neither they, nor the coach Reginald Benjamin, remember seeing a signal for penalty runs being assessed against them.

Rizwan says the situation was exacerbated by the fact that the person in charge of social media for USACA during the tournament final, former USA women's player Nadia Gruny, was unaware of the penalty runs being awarded and posted a message onto the official USACA Facebook page declaring that USA Development XI had won the championship with a single off the final ball. About 40 minutes later, the post was deleted and Gruny added a new message stating that South East had won thanks to the penalty runs. The post initially stated the penalty runs were awarded for "obstructing the fielder" and then was changed again 11 hours later to state it was for a "running on the pitch infraction."

Even after the final, there was still some confusion regarding the scoring. Rather than add penalty runs to South East's score, the official online scorecard for the match showed five runs subtracted from USA Development XI's total, an error that remained until Thursday, four days after the final, before it was finally amended.

Several players on both the South East and USA Development XI also said there were consistent scoring problems throughout the tournament, including the final. In one instance, David Pieters, a fast bowler originally from South Africa, was incorrectly credited with the first two wickets for USA Development XI instead of Jasdeep Singh, who wears a patka while playing. In another match, right-arm pacer Jasdeep's two wickets were credited to Arsh Buch, a left-arm bowler.

As for the assessment of the penalty runs themselves, Baksh stood by his decision and was supported by Fitzroy Hayles, president of the USA Cricket Umpires Association. Baksh acknowledged that theoretically a batsman running on the pitch in the second innings of a Twenty20 match would be harming the pitch for his team but said running on the pitch is illegal regardless of when it happens. Baksh also said he observed that it was a consistent problem among USA players who developed bad habits by running down the wicket because the majority of club matches are played on matting wickets with batsmen wearing sneakers. If they run on the pitch in those instances it is never penalized because no damage can be done to the artificial surface.

"Law 42 is very clear," Baksh said. "The batsman, whether they are batting last or first, should not be running on the protected area of the pitch and it is the duty of the umpire to protect the integrity of the pitch. We don't want any side to have an unfair advantage, although it may seem as though in that instance the unfair advantage might appear to be against the batting team. These cricketers are not used to playing on turf wickets. When I officiate U-19 matches in the West Indies, I never seen them run on the wicket but it happens all the time in the USA. If they go off to an ICC tournament, they're going to find themselves in trouble with the umpires. We have to sensitize our players to the protected area on a turf wicket that you cannot touch."