West Indies show madness in the method (11 May 1999)

11 May 1999

West Indies show madness in the method

Martin Johnson

Forget Lara and Tendulkar, discount Donald and Gough. If the weather stays as it is, only two men are guaranteed to leave an indelible imprint on this World Cup - Duckworth and Lewis.

The two rain-rule boffins have, by general consent, devised a fairer system than the one in operation in Australia in 1992, when South Africa left the field in their semi-final against England requiring 22 runs from 16 balls, and returned 15 minutes later with the marginally more daunting target of 21 from one ball.

The trouble with this method, however, is that no one can understand it. While the old one was worked out by a couple of scorers armed with a pocket calculator, the D/L requires a computer programme comparable with the one which beat Kasparov at chess. If the scientists really want to guard against every computer on the planet blowing up on Jan 1, it's not the millennium bug they should be working on, but the Duckworth/Lewis.

Yesterday's inclement weather at Edgbaston meant that the West Indies' total of 228 for four from 47 overs converted into a revised Warwickshire target of 245 in the same number of overs. It is, therefore, not beyond the bounds of possibility that the 1999 World Cup will go down in history for being won by the side scoring fewer runs.

The West Indies are not many people's idea of the likely winners, although World Cups have a history of throwing up innovative tactics, and Brian Lara's team have already stolen a march on the rest by employing the practice matches as a vehicle for getting in no practice at all.

With only tomorrow's game at the Oval remaining, Lara, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose have thus far confined their acclimatisation to English conditions to the inside of the pavilion. Lara is resting a wrist injury, while Walsh and Ambrose are apparently resting middle-aged legs. Walsh does have an important engagement at the Oval on Thursday, although bowling to journalists in the nets to mark the launch of his new book may be regarded by one or two nit-pickers as something less than a full-scale workout.

Lara spent most of yesterday giving his troublesome wrist a thorough workout on the telephone (the posse of journalists waiting for an audience eventually gave up) possibly to inform his old mate Dwight Yorke that he would not, after all, be travelling to Barcelona for the European Cup final.

Lara had planned to return from Spain on the eve of his team's World Cup match against Scotland at Leicester. This, however, was ruled out by the manager, Clive Lloyd, who may have had his card marked by the Warwickshire statistician - and they've had plenty of experience of Lara's timekeeping in these parts - who has totted up Lara's total of missed aeroplanes to 23.

The other West Indian batsmen looked in reasonable nick on a slow, seaming pitch yesterday, and even with no Walsh or Ambrose to face, Warwickshire fell 34 runs short of the D/L revision in an atmosphere enlivened by the presence of 6,000 schoolchildren admitted free.

Even they, however, would have appreciated something less juvenile than the half-time entertainment, involving the on-field 'marriage' of the Warwickshire mascot Hugh Bear, to a white-gowned bear named Carmen. Carmen, as it happened, was actually a bearded Warwickshire gateman, which made the disguise pretty crucial. Cricket's drive to attract a younger audience is an admirable one, but gay weddings at Edgbaston are perhaps not the way to go.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)