Cricket’s green experiment

Playing cricket at night without the lights. No unnecessary wasting of electricity, reduced power consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Amazing forward thinking by the International Cricket Council!

As I confidently predicted, Australia beat Sri Lanka in the World Cup final in Barbados. Adam Gilchrist blasted Sri Lanka out of the match, scoring 149 in quick time. Australia scored 281 off 38 overs in the rain-reduced game. Sri Lanka put up a good fight, and looked even remotely likely when Sanath Jayasuriya and Kumara Sanggakara were going hell for leather for a while. But once they were out, Sri Lanka were never going to win.

But what the match will really be remembered for is the farcical ending. After a rain delay, Sri Lanka had a revised target of 269 off 36 overs - but the umpires forgot to tell them. Then, as the light was fading fast, and Sri Lanka had nearly 70 runs left off only 3 overs, the umpires offered them to leave the field because of bad light (ie it was nearly dark), effectively meaning a concession of the match. Australia began its victory celebrations, the ground staff began cleaning up, and setting up for the trophy presentation, and then the fun began as the match officials told the teams that the match wasn’t over, there were 3 overs left and if necessary they would have to be played the next day.

This didn’t happen, as the teams agreed to play the last 3 overs, in the dark and rain. It was pretty funny to watch … without the enhancement of the TV cameras, it really was dark. I don’t know how the batsmen would have seen the ball. It was embarassing for the game of cricket - playing 3 pointless overs in ridiculous conditions when the teams had already acknowledged the outcome of the game, simply because the officials felt the need to stick to the letter of (what they thought were) the rules. In fact they were wrong, as has been admitted subsequently.

All in all, a farce of an ending to a tournament that has dragged on and on, with the inevitable result of the best team by a wide margin beating the second best team, which in turn was better than the next ranked teams by a good margin. That Australia and Sri Lanka would play the final was the obvious outcome after about the first week or two.