NATION Associate Editor (Sports) Haydn Gill raises concerns over an unsatisfactory rule in the WICB regional four-day competition.
I WANT to congratulate Combined Campuses and Colleges on making the final of the WICB regional four-day competition.
They are deserving of a place in the championship match after winning four of their preliminary matches and following up with another victory in their semifinal against Windward Islands at the 3Ws Oval on Sunday.
I want to focus, however, on what transpired in the other semifinal between Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica at the Frank Worrell Oval in Trinidad.
Here’s what happened in the match. Jamaica batted for more than two days and a session and made 664 in 201.4 overs. Trinidad and Tobago responded with 448 for nine.
Neither side captured first innings lead and the match therefore ended in a ‘no-decision’.
The bone of contention comes in determining which team advances to the final.
Under the tournament rules, Jamaica go through to the final on account of having had more points in the head-to-head clash between the two teams earlier in the season.
A widespread view, however, is that Trinidad and Tobago should have been in the final on account of placing higher than Jamaica in the preliminaries.
I cannot help but to argue with that. Trinidad and Tobago and Tobago placed second in the preliminaries and Jamaica third.
The rule, in its presence form, is woefully flawed and needs to be reviewed.
I back up my assertion by pointing to the same rules which say that the hosts for the semifinals will be the higher placed in the preliminaries.
If that is the deciding factor over venues for the semifinals, it should also be the first point of reference in determining which team advances to the final in the event of a ‘no-decision’ in the semifinals.
You can’t be saying that the higher position counts for something in one regard and counts of nothing in another that bears similarities.
It would seem logical that the rule should be structured to favour the team that did better throughout the season rather than favour a team that had the better in a one-off instance.
There is talk that Trinidad and Tobago are considering their legal options in the matter. While I sympathize with them, the rules are clear and they should accept that they were victims of unsatisfactory rules that need to be corrected for next year’s tournament.
What also concerns me in this whole episode is Jamaica’s approach to the match. They broke no rules and clearly knew what was required for them to get to the final.
Would I be out of place, however, to suggest that Jamaica played in the match contrary to the spirit of the game?
At the beginning of every cricket game, the intention should be to win and if a team choses to bat up until after lunch on the third day of a four-day match, it would appear that the team’s priority is not to win.
It would seem to me that Jamaica didn’t care less if they won or took first innings lead simply because they knew a ‘no-decision’ would take them to the final.
The message that is being conveyed here is that you do what it takes to get to a final and have no consideration for anything else.
In such cases, cricket is surely not the winner.
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