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Windies farce could lead to rules change
Match referee Javagal Srinath is considering changing the playing regulations to prevent a repeat of the farcical ending to last night's opening match of the one-day series between West Indies and England.
The tourists claimed their first win of the winter by one run under the Duckworth Lewis method after West Indies walked off the pitch for bad light with 3.4 overs remaining at the Providence Stadium, with coach John Dyson wrongly believing they were ahead and had won the opener to the five-match series.
It followed a 45-minute delay for rain earlier in the match but, despite having the option of reducing the 40-minute break between innings, the match officials chose to have the full interval and the match concluded in the dark.
The contentious finish has persuaded Srinath to consider either starting tomorrow's second match half an hour earlier or utilising the lights at the stadium following a meeting between himself, the match officials and the two captains.
A final decision will be made before tomorrow, when England will report for duty with spirits considerably lifted following their first win in their 14th match of the winter.
"We've been working really hard for the last few weeks, starting with the last three Tests and, after the Twenty20 defeat, the guys have been putting it in really hard," said captain Andrew Strauss.
"That's quite dispiriting if you don't get anything to show from the hard work or any reward for it so a win was desperately needed - you don't expect to win in that fashion, but we'll take a win."
Strauss, playing his first one-day international in two years, admitted he had sympathy for Dyson, whose interest in becoming England's next full-time coach is likely to have been considerably hampered by his blunder.
"You can never be 100% sure so it was surprising when they started walking off and a little bit confusing for a minute or two," admitted Strauss.
"To be fair to our support staff, they were very clear we were ahead in the game and those Duckworth Lewis tables are quite hard to decipher at times so you can understand why mistakes are made and thankfully we were on the right side of it.
"They (the tables) are easy to mis-read and, certainly, when you've got to factor in the number of wickets lost and the ball of the over it is, you need to make sure you're reading it correctly.
"It's very easy to make mistakes but, at the same time, they've been around for a long time now and you shouldn't make mistakes at this level because it can cost you."
West Indies captain Chris Gayle claimed the team had accepted Dyson's apology and were not blaming him for the debacle, adding: "He was looking in the wrong column. He explained it to us and apologised for that mistake.
"We're very disappointed to lose the game in this way but, in these circumstances, no one wants to make this sort of mistake and I'm not going to kill him or anything like that.
"There is no reason to point any fingers at this point in time. We're here as a team and we'll go down as a team."
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Weather for Yorkshire
Friday 25 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 8 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: East
