Sri Lanka clueless about new rain rule (3 November 1998)

3 November 1998

Sri Lanka clueless about new rain rule

by Sa'adi Thawfeeq

World champs Sri Lanka experienced the Duckworth/Lewis rain rule for the first time in their mini World Cup semi-final against South Africa at Dhaka, and that they came a cropper, is no surprise.

It was an unusual situation to be faced with. The match was to be decided in the minimum of 15 overs and not the usual 25 overs. It was drizzling from the time we came out to bat, and we didn't know at what stage after the fist 15 overs, the match would be stopped," said Sri Lanka manager Ranjit Fernando.

"It was like going into the unknown. We had to be chasing at every stage and it was hard to maintain the target after every over. The target kept on changing at the fall of every wicket, thus we were under pressure all the time. This is the first time we encountered this rule and I think we need to seriously start thinking of tackling it successfully," said Fernando.

Sri Lanka were left chasing 240 for victory off 34 overs, after South Africa had made 240 for 7 in 39.

Sri Lanka continued to play the match despite the bad conditions, because neither side wanted a bowl out, and also because the organisers wanted to see the match through. The drizzle made the batsman's footwork rather slippery on the clay track. They also found it difficult to concentrate. The pitch exposed to the rain, was also assisting the South African bowlers.

However, Fernando and coach Roy Dias admitted the shot selection of the Sri Lankan batsmen under the conditions was poor and praised the South Africans for handling the wet ball very well. 'Man of the Match' Jacques Kallis' century enabled South Africa to run up a challenging total, but according to the Sri Lankan management, he was lucky. As bad luck would have it, Sri Lanka's was the only match in the entire mini World Cup tournament to be effected by bad weather.

Fernando attributed the poor batting of his team to the lack of competitive cricket they had since returning from England in the first week of September. The practice games were affected by bad weather which forced the players to practice indoors. Apart from the batting, he said there was a lot of work to be done on the fielding, where the fielders seldom hit the stumps - feature of their success in the last World Cup, two years ago.

The plus points of the tour said Fernando, were the return of left-arm fast bowlers Chaminda Vaas and Nuwan Zoysa from injury which gave the bowling the penetration and variety.

The Duckworth/Lewis rule will be in force during the World Cup in England next year and it is imperative that Sri Lanka get used to it as early possible. The rule was in force during the Emirates trophy triangular in England in August, which Sri Lanka won. But none of the matches were affected by bad weather and the rule never came into play.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to introduce this rule to the Sri Lanka Cricket Board's Premier one-day tournament which is scheduled to begin in the first week of December, as virtually all the national players will be representing their respective clubs.

The principle which the Duckworth/Lewis rule applies is that the target is set according to the relative run scoring resources which are at the disposal of the two sides. These are not in direct proportion to the number of overs available to be faced, as implicitly assumed by the average run rate method of correction, but depend on how many overs are to go and how many wickets are down when the interruption occur.

This complicated system of calculating targets in rain-affected matches has confused players and spectators in England where it is in use for the domestic one-day competitions.

Source :: Daily News (https://www.lanka.net)