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HOBART. — Zimbabwe head coach Dave Houghton has indicated his players had pleaded with the on-field umpires to abandon the ICC Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup Super-12 game against South Africa on Monday due to unplayable ground conditions, made worse by the pouring rain.
Houghton, who was left fuming with the umpires for not abandoning the match against South Africa much earlier than it was finally agreed upon due to the inclement weather and difficult ground conditions, said it was “ridiculous” and not even a ball should have been bowled in those conditions.
During the chase, Zimbabwe fast bowler Richard Ngarava slipped and had to be taken off, even as the umpires kept the players on the field.
Finally, the match was abandoned with South Africa on 51 without loss in three overs chasing Zimbabwe’s 79/5 in nine-overs-a-side game in a Super 12 Group 2 match.
The tactician also revealed Zimbabwe captain Craig Ervine and Sikandar Raza urged the umpires to call off the game.
“I know that Craig (Ervine) and (Sikandar) Raza had a word with the umpire and said, basically just asked what do you constitute as rain because we’re getting quite wet here. I don’t really know much else. I didn’t ask them what the actual conversations were, but I think eventually Sean Williams said just as he was about to start bowling that he didn’t think he could bowl, it was too wet, and they brought us off,” said Houghton shedding light on the on-field conditions during the match.
On whether he himself spoke to the umpires, Houghton said, “There wasn’t a lot of talking with me. I asked the question of the third umpire about why we had gone back on when it was raining, and he said it was up to the umpires in the middle to make that decision.
“Other than that, we were just communicated with how many overs were left and what the target was now and so on.After the first time we came off when they reduced it to seven-overs, there was a bit of a delay because no one seemed to know what the target was. There wasn’t a lot of communication between us,” added Houghton about the messy situation during the match.
South Africa coach Mark Boucher, meanwhile, suggested that the situation of the game may have played a part in Zimbabwe’s reluctance to carry on.
“If Zimbabwe were in our position they would have wanted to carry on playing,” he said. “We bowled with a ball that was quite wet as well. We were in a very good position. You walk away from this game thinking we were hard done by. We are not there to make the calls, that’s what officials do and officials made the call and we’ve got to live with their decisions.” — Newsroomodisha.com
Online Reporter