IT IS far easier to get robbed in the night than in the day. As for the eliminator on Wednesday night, TKR (Trinbago Knight Riders) weren’t robbed, they lost a cricket match.

People seem to mix up the laws of cricket and regulations. Also, the DLS (Duckworth Lewis Stern) method is a mathematical formulation designed to calculate the target score (number of runs needed to win) for the team batting second in a limited-overs cricket match interrupted by weather or other circumstances, as applied for that match.

Now, if TKR captain Kieron Pollard decided to continue after the two out of three floodlight towers came back on, this bacchanal would not have manifested.

However, the umpires were the ones who said it was unsafe, and Pollard, looking after the safety of his players, declined to carry on, which is his right.

If the umpires said that the conditions were not ideal or unfavourable, then probably Pollard may have thought differently, or he would’ve wanted to play in the best possible conditions since it is a must-win for them and still not play; same for Barbados Royals captain Rovman Powell.

There are many cut-off times in a match where play must cease to exist. This is because enough time must be allowed for the other team to bat or field; ground staff aren’t being paid overtime; same with security, media; and people have to go to work the next day.

There are allowances for intervals, umpires getting a new ball, looking for the ball beyond the boundary-and that is taken into account. Whether play starts an hour, 30 minutes or one minute before cut-off time, play is still possible.

If the regulations of this tournament say that five overs constitute an innings, and that two of that five is the powerplay, if the team batting first played more than five overs, then that is in accordance with the regulations of the CPL (Caribbean Premier League). Not what we see in the IPL (Indian Premier League), or Australia, or how it is done in Bamboo, PowerGen or North Zone-each of them have their own regulations, maybe similar, but not exactly the same.

All we had to do was prevent the Royals from scoring 59 runs in 30 balls, and they didn’t. TKR lost fair and square.

Kendell Karan
Chaguanas