Duckworth-Lewis madness: an easy solution

England come into today’s rain-reduced game with a chance of not going home empty-handed.

Which represents some kind of progress, after the 5-0 pasting in India.

But let’s not forget that is almost entirely down to the generosity of West Indies coach John Dyson whose Duckworth-Lewis mess-up in the first ODI, wrecked a day’s cricket not just for his own team but for everyone at the ground and watching on TV.

In calling his players off when light was offered in Guyana, in the mistaken belief that they were ahead on Duckworth-Lewis, Dyson made about as big a mistake as a sports coach could make.

It was sporting suicide. Not a duff tactical decision or selection – but, actually, a surrender.

I’d like to know this. Why are cricketers and coaches carrying round little scraps of paper with Duckworth-Lewis on that – often – seem to be unreliable?

There are official scorers at the game – as well as scorers from TV and radio- plus two on-field umpires, a third umpire, a fourth umpire and a referee. Is it beyond the wit of this army of officials to make sure the Duckworth-Lewis score that appears on the scoreboard is officially sanctioned and correct?

Surely the primary purpose of every single one of these scorers and officials – working together – is to make sure that the people in the ground and at home have a firm idea on exactly what the score is?

Everything else is a nicety if you don’t know the score; if, after a game has finished, no-one knows who has won, what’s the point?

Why should we waste out time and money?

(In fact, the scoreboard in Guyana got it right; but the general culture of the game seems to suggest that the scoreboard can’t be officially relied upon. Hence the amateurish farce with all the little bits of paper.)

Still, never mind. Cricket only very occasionally looks amateurish and fiasco-prone, eh?

Joke.

The World Cup final ended in farce, of course.

Last summer, England’s Twenty20 Cup saw an administrative nightmare when Yorkshire’s failure to fill in their player registration forms properly. That led to a full house, all set for a Cup quarter-final, being sent home with no cricket.

Never mind all the financial shenanigans at Stanford: what about the floodlights and all those dropped catches?

And the Test in Antigua abandoned after 10 balls because no-one could foresee the pitch was hopeless?

Or the referral system, hopelessly compromised by the refusal to use the technology properly? For days in the Caribbean, the TV umpire was judging snicks with the sound turned down on his television!

!!!!!!!!

And the series of batathons on dead pitches in the Windies (and in the ill-starred Pakistan-Sri Lanka series)? At least with those pitches, you knew who was likely to win: no-one.

Surely, cricket can’t just keep shrugging and saying it’s just ‘one of those things’.

The mistake – the big mistake- last Friday was John Dyson’s. But it’s symptomatic of a sport whose administrators have never ever grasped that giving the public – at the ground and at home – something to watch should be the No 1 priority. The idea of ‘the show must go on’ or even of ‘the show’ is never part of the calculations. It’s that lack of intent to provide the public with value for money that lies at the root of all the fiascos detailed above and all the ones that are surely still to come.

With security and terrorist issues threatening the game in some parts of the world, cricket cannot afford to act like this.

The fact that Dyson called his players off for bad light is even more laughable when you consider that the stadium has a full set of floodlights.

Naturally, it’s simply unthinkable that cricket might consider using floodlights in a game that is not officially a day-nighter. Of course it is. Just as it’s unthinkable that the D-L calculation should be updated ball-by-ball and displayed, officially, on the main scoreboard at grounds.

That would all just be too easy. Wouldn’t it?