Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

Does it work in 20/20 cricket?

Or should a more equitable way of dealing with rain delays be found?

It does seem unfortunate that an important match like this should end in such a farcical manner....

I wonder in a game that is so short, why cant the game actually be extended? They still in theory could be playing now at 10?

D/L is better than what went before it, but is not perfect. Still a team batting second under lights could argue succesfully that they are at a dissadvantage, and then what would we do about the toss? This is what makes cricket great in many ways, its not predictable.

Its fine. Its part and parcel of the game. An england fan has little right to complain about the D/L.

Fact is they did not get enough and the D/L showed this IMO.

A D/L target is never going to please one way or the other but that's cricket.

ddb has got it spot on IMO

Well done to the Windies. If any team were to get to the semi-finals at England’s expense, I’m glad it was they.

However, tonight’s game once again calls into question the system used to determine the target for a team batting second in a rain-affected match where the number of overs is so drastically reduced. There are many points on which the system can be criticised but I’d make just two, which seem to be the most salient.

Firstly, the chances of losing all 10 wickets in a 9 over slog are close to zero, which means a team can abandon all caution in the run chase. The team setting the target and batting first does not have this luxury and Duckworth/Lewis does not address this iniquity.

The second point, which could be more easily addressed, concerns the power-play. In a full 20 over innings, 30% of the overs are delivered with only 2 fielders allowed outside the inner circle. Tonight, however, when 3 overs were allocated to the power-play, this rose to 33%. Surely, in the interests of fairness, the power-play in the Windies’ innings should have ended after 4 balls of the 3rd over. Perhaps though, even this simple calculation is beyond the wit of the time-serving dullards at the ICC.

We have no leg to stand on if we start complaining about D/L as the reason for our loss - we did kinda win the toss and decide to bat, and the threat of rain later on had been made quite clear.

They should have played the match down here on the South coast - there weren't a cloud in the sky all evening!

Dimi wrote:We have no leg to stand on if we start complaining about D/L as the reason for our loss - we did kinda win the toss and decide to bat, and the threat of rain later on had been made quite clear.

The threat of rain may not have outweighed the attraction of batting first in normal light.

Until something comes along that is better than Duckworth/Lewis, we have to accept the outcomes it produces. However, something could be easily done about the power-play calculation.

D/L wrote:Well done to the Windies. If any team were to get to the semi-finals at England’s expense, I’m glad it was they.

However, tonight’s game once again calls into question the system used to determine the target for a team batting second in a rain-affected match, where the number of overs is so drastically reduced. There are many points on which the system can be criticised but I’d make just two, which seem to be the most salient.

Firstly, the chances of losing all 10 wickets in a 9 over slog are close to zero, which means a team can abandon all caution in the run chase. The team batting first does not have this luxury and Duckworth/Lewis does not address this iniquity.

The second point, which could be more easily addressed, concerns the power-play. In a full 20 over innings, 30% of the overs are delivered with only 2 fielders allowed outside the inner circle. Tonight, however, when 3 overs were allocated to the power-play, this rose to 33%. Surely, in the interests of fairness, the power-play in the Windies’ innings should have ended after 4 balls of the 3rd over. Perhaps though, even this simple calculation is beyond the wit of the time-serving dullards at the ICC.

Any road up, never mind. At the end of the day, it's only Twenty20!

Well the chance of losing all 10 wickets in a 20 over match is very low. How often have sides been bowled out in this tournament? I count 5 instances in 22 matches or basically 23%. Of those Scotland got bowled out once, the Dutch once, England once, Ireland once and NZ once. So it's very, very unlikely that teams from full member countries will ever be bowled out in 20 overs either (just twice in 13 matches involving only full member or 15% of those matches) so the chance of losing all 10 wickets in 9 overs shouldn't have anything to do with the target or the system used to determine it. What kind of system would it be if it determined a target based around the idea of teams being able lose all 10 wickets in 9 overs when around 80% of the time teams never lose all 10 wickets in 20 overs anyway?

It would seem from the fact that 10 wickets have been taken from full member sides in only 15% of matches involving full members, that full member teams do indeed have the luxury of slogging with abandon (isn't that what T20 is all about anyway?). Why wouldn't you slog when there is 85% chance that at the end of 20 overs there will still be a wicket left standing that you can risk? And didn't England, WI, South Africa, India, Pakistan and New Zealand all have a slog at sometime throughout this tournament to get scores approaching 180-210 (or thereabouts if they hadn't reached their target before then with a high run-rate)? England made 185 off 20 overs once, and South Africa made 183 and 211. In all 3 of those instances they were going at more than 9 an over. Certainly they must consitute a "slog" if 80 off 9 overs (for less than 9 an over) is considered a slog.

Had WI really abandoned all caution in this chase they would surely have lost since it was the calm approach of Shiv and Sarwan that saw them to the target and not the wild slogging of Fletcher, Simmons, Gayle and Pollard (that kind of play resulted in consistent wickets for the fielding team didn't it?)

The second point, which could be more easily addressed, concerns the power-play. In a full 20 over innings, 30% of the overs are delivered with only 2 fielders allowed outside the inner circle. Tonight, however, when 3 overs were allocated to the power-play, this rose to 33%. Surely, in the interests of fairness, the power-play in the Windies’ innings should have ended after 4 balls of the 3rd over. Perhaps though, even this simple calculation is beyond the wit of the time-serving dullards at the ICC.

What? Have a power-play end during an over? Why? Because of an artifact of mathematics? Surely if they are going to look at having equal percentages based on a reduction in overs then everything should be reduced accordingly.

Thus if the power-play must constitute exactly 30% of the innings, then the target itself should be determined based on the first-innings' run-rate times the reduced number of overs (can't be fair to reduce the batting team's power-plays by the exact figure and keep the target higher than a corresponding reduction would entail). In which case the target should have been 72.45 runs exactly. Don't see how it's unfair to finish the 3rd over as the power-play when the required run-rate ends up being higher under D/L. Had WI started with a full 20 overs, their required rate would have been 8.05 not 8.89.

Also to be really fair any system which ended up using the power-plays down to the individual balls of an over, should really call for a reduction in the number of batsmen and wickets and fielders for 20 overs to start with. After all 10 wickets can be taken in 50 overs but are unlikely to be taken in 20 overs. Thus teams should be all out at 4 wickets down logically if we are going to carry over percentages.

Of course the really tricky thing is that 30% of 9 overs is 2.7 which when done exactly would give 2 overs and 4.2 balls. We could take this all the way and say that for a fifth of the time while the bowler is running up in his fifth delivery the fieldsmen must be under power-play restrictions.....

Theres nothing wrong with Duckworth Lewis.

As for bad weather forecast captains normally prefer to bat second which England didn't and paid the price.

It should be obvious that a side with 20 overs to bat cannot take as many chances as a side batting for less than half these overs.

What is the logic behind saying that a complete number of overs must be allocated to power plays?

I must be stupid - but it seems to me that the idea of "power plays" in 20/20 is just about a tautology! Why bother?

I know what you mean, gollygosh, but they do impose restrictions on the fielding side. Yesterday, however, The Windies were restricted for 30% of the time they bowled and England 33%.

The effects of interruptions to play on runs and wickets should probably be left to Duckworth/Lewis, unless a better system comes along, but the ICC could quite easily make power plays fairer in these circumstances. Yesterday, the power play would have ended with the 4th ball of the 3rd over. I don’t see any problem with this when field placings are changed almost every ball anyway.

D/L wrote:I know what you mean, gollygosh, but they do impose restrictions on the fielding side. Yesterday, however, The Windies were restricted for 30% of the time they bowled and England 33%.

The effects of interruptions to play on runs and wickets should probably be left to Duckworth/Lewis, unless a better system comes along, but the ICC could quite easily make power plays fairer in these circumstances. Yesterday, the power play would have ended with the 4th ball of the 3rd over. I don’t see any problem with this when field placings are changed almost every ball anyway.

For anything to be "fair" the odds must be the same - the players,wicket,umpiring decisions, weather cannot be guaranteed to be so ; the laws of cricket are the same for both sides and the playing conditions as laid down in a rain interrupted game should also be the same. Your point is therefore right and I, for one, could not argue the fairness or logic you put forward

Thanks, Albondiga. I suppose it’s too much to hope that anyone at the ICC would recognise either the unfairness of the power-play calculation or how easy it would be to put it right!

D/L wrote:It should be obvious that a side with 20 overs to bat cannot take as many chances as a side batting for less than half these overs.

What is the logic behind saying that a complete number of overs must be allocated to power plays?

the same logic behind saying that a complete number of deliveries must be allocated to a power-play. Why not have a fifth of a delivery if they are going to be that exact? Besides, how would it be fair to have a power-play replicated in terms of percentage right down to the individual balls but then still have a target that requires a higher run-rate?