West Indies: Call For 'Reserve Day' For Cricket (18 October 1998)

18 October 1998

West Indies: Call For 'Reserve Day' For Cricket

by Haydn Gill

Against the background that the weather has cruelly affected the Red Stripe Bowl Final Four for the second successive year, a regional captain is urging the West Indies authorities to give consideration to a reserve day for semifinal matches.

The suggestion has come from Philo Wallace, skipper of the Barbados team that was hard done by the rain that prematurely ended their semifinal against Guyana at the Kaiser Sports Club on Friday.

"The West Indies Cricket Board can also look at having a reserve day for the semifinals in case of rain. There is a game tomorrow (yesterday) and then there is a free day on Sunday," Wallace told SunSport.

"It is something worth noting for the future of cricket. The people here are thirsty for cricket and they were very disappointed at not having a full game."

When the clouds that had been hovering over the ground for most of the entire day finally burst in mid-afternoon, Barbados were 72 for three in the 15th over in search of a revised target of 208 in 38 overs.

Guyana scored 237 for eight off their allotted 50 overs, but the start of the Barbados innings was delayed by an hour because of a very light drizzle.

It was the second successive year that a semifinal match was abandoned in similar circumstances.

In last season's inaugural tournament, the match between Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, played almost a year to the day on the same ground was declared a no-result. The scores were almost identical to Friday's match with Guyana reaching 72 without loss off 11 overs after Trinidad and Tobago set them a target of 220.

Under the playing conditions of the tournament, a reserve day is only set aside for the final.

That was not the case last year. Co-incidentally, in this year's revised Nortel limited-overs championship in Trinidad three months ago, reserve days were in place for preliminary matches, but none was set aside for either the semifinals or final.

As it turned out, both semis and the final produced no results because of the weather.

Meanwhile, Wallace was satisfied with the showing of the Barbados team after the disappointment of not advancing past the preliminaries the previous two seasons.

"We performed well. We did well to get to the semifinals. We batted well, bowled well and fielded well in patches," the Barbados captain said.

"All in all, we have learned from this competition. It was nice to get to the semifinals. Hopefully next year we can improve in the areas we were weak in this year and go straight through to the final - rain or no rain."

Source :: The Barbados Nation (https://www.nationnews.com/)