Run with Eric + Sport

West Indies, fans robbed by bad light, Duckworth-Lewis

Someone, somewhere, needs to work out the Duckworth-Lewis rule and explain it to people before using it.

The West Indies are the latest team to lose out as a result of confusion, having accepted the offer to go off for bad light, thinking they were ahead of the rate. It turned out they weren't, and England won by one run. Completely unfair on the Windies, of course, who weren't even being naïve but were operating under a different set of rules.

Another game ruined.

The bigger question for me, though, is why they went off in the first place. 27 needed to win from 22 balls? 3 wickets left? Game on. It'd have to be pitch black to call that one off in my mind. And for the sake of 3 1/2 overs, you really do think they could have played on in the supposed gloom.

Officials need to either think up a simpler alternative to the Duckworth-Lewis system or explain it to teams more clearly, and umpires really need to think about what constitutes sufficient bad light to end a day's play. A cricket match shouldn't end abruptly because it's a little murky.

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West Indies, fans robbed by bad light, Duckworth-Lewis + Sport