Umpire Ian Howell on Thursday defended the decision to call play off early on the third day of the second Castle Lager Test between South Africa and India at Kingsmead.
Play was suspended early for the third successive day. When the players left the field, South Africa had 64 without loss in their second innings, for an overall lead of 152 runs.
The decision to take the players off the field eight balls after the lights had come back on, following a 45 minute stoppage caused by a municipal power failure was one of the most controversial events on a day of drama, which saw umpire Mark Benson of England taken to hospital for observation, after having to leave the field
because of heart palpitations.
Howell, who took over from Benson, explained that just before the power failure occurred, the umpires offered the light to the batsmen, Graeme Smith and AB de Villiers.
”They decided they wanted to try and play on,” he said. ”When the lights went out, they decided they would continue, but eventually they decided they were not comfortable with the light and we went off.
”The idea was that when the power came back on, we would go out again, but by that time, the light had deteriorated considerably. The light was at a lower reading from when it was originally offered. Asad [Rauf] and I decided we would see how long we could go on. We had an over from my end, and then we decided that the
light was unfit for play. We tried to get cricket on the field, but eventually it gets to the stage where the umpires have to make a call.
”We really wanted to push the game forward tonight, so we’re hugely frustrated,” said SA coach Mickey Arthur. ”Ball changing, doctors running on the field, the lights going out ‒- I think there needs to be some proper control taken of that or it could turn into something hugely frustrating for us. We timed it -‒ it took 20 minutes to change one ball today. I’d just like to see some strong control so that we can get this game going forward -‒ it was really very stop-start.
”We’re pushing forward for victory,” he added. ”We got very close to the targets we set for ourselves, and we believe we would have reached those targets if it had not been for the interruptions. We wanted a lead of 100, and we got 88, and we wanted to be 200 ahead at the end of the day, and we were 150 ahead.”
He said South Africa was working to the same plans as they had in the first Test at the Wanderers, but this time the plans were being properly executed.
”We’ve got to bat properly to get ourselves into a position to win,” he said. ”The weather is a concern, and we will make our plans when we see the weather forecast tomorrow. We believe we can win, but there’s still a lot of work to do.” – Sapa