West Indies: Top guns ready to fire in Bowl semi-finals (16 October 1998)

16 October 1998

West Indies: Top guns ready to fire in Bowl semi-finals

Tony Becca

The Red Stripe Bowl semi-finals are on at Kaiser today and tomorrow and if everything goes well it should be two days of exciting cricket.

In today's match, it will be Guyana up against Barbados, tomorrow it will be defending champions Leeward Islands versus Trinidad and Tobago and with batsmen such as Brian Lara, Carl Hooper, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Clayton Lambert, Philo Wallace, Sherwin Campbell, Stuart Williams, Keith Arthurton, Phil Simmons, Suruj Ragoonath, Darren Ganga and Sylvester Joseph in action, the West Indies best, but for one or two, and its brightest prospects will be on show.

The same goes for the bowling with the likes of Curtly Ambrose, Kenny Benjamin, Mervyn Dillon, Ian Bishop, Reon King, Pedro Collins, Dinanath Ramnarine and Neil McGarrell on parade.

There could be one problem, however. There could be no match today, no match tomorrow and only the final on Monday, or if necessary, on Tuesday.

According to the rules of the tournament, if there is no result in the final on the day scheduled, it will be played on the day following. There is, however, no such provision for the semi-finals. The rules state if there is a tie or a no result in either or both of the semi-finals, the right to play in the final will be determined by the team with the most wins in the zonal competition, or if still equal, the higher net run-rate throughout the zonal competition.

That is a strange rule - strange because a competition without action is a waste of time, strange because the competition is supposed to assist in the development of the players for the benefit of the West Indies team and strange because of the way in which the finalists will be decided.

To break a tie in a zone by most wins or net run-rate is understandable - for the simple reason that the teams played each other. To do so in the semi-finals where one team from one zone plays another from another zone is, however, difficult to understand - for the simple reason that they played against different teams.

If there is no result today, for example, would it be fair to decide which team goes into the final based on what Guyana did against Trinidad and Tobago, the Windward Islands and Bermuda as against what Barbados did against the Leeward Islands, Jamaica and the United States?

No, that cannot be fair, and neither is it good for West Indies cricket. If the tournament is part of the development process in West Indies cricket, a day should have been set aside and in future should be set aside to ensure a result - unless the reason for the tournament is to crown a West Indies limited-over champion and nothing else.

Source :: The Jamaica Gleaner (https://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/)