Wednesday, April 4

Concept of 'reserve day' doesn't sit well

The West Indies - Australia game, dated March 27th, spilled over to the reserve day on the 28th and was eventually won by Australia by 100+ runs. Now I am not such a big fan of this concept of a reserve day. An ODI cricket match should be played within a single day, or abandoned completely. It is not fair on the teams, for a match to spill over to the next day, because the circumstances are different. According to the rules of the tournament....

From cricinfo...
Every match has a reserve day although every effort will be made to complete the game on the first day, with over reductions being used throughout. Only if each side is not able to face 20 overs on the scheduled day will the reserve day be used. In the event of the reserve day being needed, the match will be continued and not restarted.

Naturally, the biggest difference is that there is more rest for the players to play another day. But what happened with the West Indies was, that they played 3 straight days of cricket during that time which is just awful.

Playing on the second day, the team think-tanks also get more time to think about strategy, to reassess the situation and bowl accordingly. Cricket relies heavily on environmental conditions and the advantage and/or disadvantage of the toss or the conditions is nullified.

I agree that the reserve day is there for the fans, so that we can watch a full 100 overs of cricket. That's all well and good, but it doesn't disguise the fact the match isn't the same anymore.

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