Only 72.2 overs on a perfect day!

Kolkata : Despite play starting 15 minutes earlier than the scheduled start, only 72-odd overs were bowled today. It’s very odd — on a perfect day for cricket, the spectators were short-changed by 18 overs. The reason is simple: It’s quite gloomy by 4.30pm, and pitch-dark by 5.15pm. Someone needs to remind the BCCI/ICC that Kolkata is the eastern-most Metro — you can’t have the same schedule for Mumbai and Kolkata. Over here, the sun rises earlier and sets earlier! If it’s winter and a 9.30am start, never would the daily quota of 90 overs be achieved.
“There was a time when Test matches started at 9am here in Kolkata,” says Sanjay Manjrekar.
Why did things change? Apparently, the change happened, and timings standardised across India, after it was pointed by the ICC that 9am was too early to start a Test in India’s winters. This is another rule that needs to be looked into — Kolkata is, remember, way, way east of Mumbai or Chennai.
Morality tale
Strange are the ways of those who make the rules, and no surprise it is that the law is frequently called an ass.
Dinesh Chandimal came close to gifting India five penalty runs by nearly contravening a strange new rule. Cricket has many morality clauses, but not all of them are written into the law book.
ICC’s Cricket Committee wrote down one morality clause in cricket’s laws in September. It pertains to ‘fake fielding’, ie when a fielder tries to trick the batsman by pretending that he’s got the ball in his hand.
Chandimal did it in India’s innings, after Bhuvneshwar Kumar drove the ball past extra-cover; Chandimal dived but couldn’t stop the ball — however, he rose to his feet and took back his right hand in a throwing motion, and went halfway with the ‘throw’. Watching it on TV, Virat Kohli reacted animatedly, probably hoping to get five penalty runs. In September, an Australian fielder, Marnus Labuschagne, did commit the sin of ‘fake fielding’ and his team was penalised.
Simon Doull, the New Zealand cricketer-commentator, said it’s a stupid law. The ICC Cricket Committee comprises current and former players, umpires, match referees, media representatives, among other very wise men. Can such men make a stupid law? “All I can say is that that’s my opinion only,” said Doull when asked about the big-shot law-makers of the ICC Cricket Committee. “And even the most intelligent men do the stupidest things sometimes!”
Silence at Eden
Will the dangerously restive Eden Gardens crowd, known to reduce strong men to a bundle of nerves, eventually become extinct?
The Eden crowd (some used the word ‘mob’, especially when the fans started burning things, including stands!) of the past comprised the most noisy and passionate fans only Bengal can produce. They were the choicest of toughies, the crème de la crème of shouters and rabble-rousers. They were a terror to the visiting teams, especially batsmen. Rumesh Ratnayake knows a thing or two about the adrenaline-pumped, super-energised Kolkata crowd of the past, though he never played a Test here. The former Sri Lanka paceman, now the bowling coach, told this team to not be intimidated by the Eden crowd. “There will be a big crowd, look at the noise and don’t be rattled by the noise,” Ratnayake told his team before the game started.
But few fans turned up on the first two days. The ones who did had nothing to be noisy about as India’s batsmen struggled to put bat to ball. Today being Saturday, and bright and sunny, everyone hoped for a ‘big’ crowd. But only around 8,000-odd fans turned up. They showed commendable lung-power in the third session when Umesh Yadav and Bhuvneshwar Kumar were racing in to bowl. Still, by past standards, it was nothing — it was just a whisper compared to the roar of the past.