The Josephian cricket fiasco

The above match was played on the 3rd and 4th November at St. Joseph’s College Grounds and M/s. D. Bodiyabaduge & Deepal Surasinghe officiated.

The first day the match was started at 10.00 a.m. and Mahinda College batted first and was all out for 90 runs at 1.27 in the afternoon for which St. Joseph’s College bowled 37 overs, at an average of 4.19 minutes per over. St. Joseph’s College went to bat at 1.37 p.m. and faced 23 overs in 96 minutes and were 68 for 3 wickets at tea (3.15 p.m.) at which time it trained and the match was called off for the day.

Although the match should have started on the second day at 9.30 a.m., it could not be started because of a wet bowlers run up and some patches on the side wickets areas, and St. Joseph’s College decided to declare at the overnight score in an effort to win the match outright.

Mahinda College started their 2nd innings at 10.00 a.m. and was all out for 140 runs after facing 62 overs at 2.20 p.m. in 214 minutes, at an average of 3.45 per over. St. Joseph’s College had to get 163 runs in the balance 38 remaining for the day and were 160 for 4 wickets in 20.2 overs bowled in 112 minutes at an average of 5.6 minutes per over.

At this point the umpires suddenly called for the covers and stopped the game denying St. Joseph’s College to get 3 runs for victory with one batsman on 99 not out and was about to face the next ball. True to the Josephians Spirit the two Batsman walked off without showing any dissent. The most confusing thing is that play was suspended during the course of an over and the umpires did not even wait to complete the 23rd over.

If you analyse the second innings of St. Joseph’s the Mahindians had an over rate of approximately 10 overs per hour. The umpires also warned the Mahinda captain for same and if sanity prevailed at that time the umpires also could have brought up the Law 42.(9) and awarded 5 penalty runs for the slow over rate which would have given the Mahinda captain a slap on his back and though otherwise of having a slow over rate. Law 42 (9) could easily have been applied as many actions by the Mahinda College team deemed to warrant such action, one such glaring action was when at one point the Captain called for a player from the boundary line to bowl an over and the player lethargically walked upto the bowling crease and took some time and did not bowl the over and again lethargically walked back to the boundary line allowing someone else to bowl that over and I was wondering whether the players were out of control. In any case the main criteria in deciding excessively slow bowling is the overate itself. In this case it was approximately 10 overs per hour which is obviously not acceptable by any standard.

I really cannot understand why the umpires took such a stand as it was one side which was going to win and not offering the light or batting in a light drizzle to the batsman as the injury tolerance on the players would have been zero as I foresee the match could have finished within the next four balls or for that matter in the next ball which denied St. Joseph’s a win and a Batsman a Century, if only common sense and proper match management skills prevailed St. Joseph’s could have got their fifth outright victory for the season which they are working very hard for, and truly deserved.

I would also like to bring to your notice that on the 1st day of the match I saw one umpire suddenly stopping the match and having a chat for about 10 minutes with some spectators near the scoreboard and if umpires go to such extent the game will suffer. The game is already suffering as the “spirit” of the young cricketers are being ‘killed’ by such actions/inactions by authorities.

We would appreciate if the authorities could inquire into this matter and let sanity prevail even at this late stage by awarding 5 penalty runs (As per the Law) to St. Joseph’s College. Please note that we are not asking for the match to be awarded but we ask for 5 penalty runs as per the law.