England cricket team tour
to South Africa in Nov 1999 was beset
with problems and would be remembered for some other wrong reasons but perhaps
many would have made a search on that tour this day !!
Today, India should have
been playing England at Manchester in the Fifth and final test – and there were
some Qs : Will Ashwin play ? – if yes,
who would be dropped ?; would India persist with VC Ajinkya Rahane ? – would India
rest Bumrah ?? - what could be the
result ? – will England bounce back ? – would it be a Series win by India ? –
would it be 2-1 or 3-1 ? .. .. Qs, Qs
and more !!
There is chaos all over ! .. .. and
that has been caused by utterly irresponsible behaviour - it seems that the BCCI and some sections of
the English media are not happy with Ravi Shastri and Virat Kohli’s
“irresponsible” bio-bubble breach in London. “Thankfully the nightmare scenario was avoided
on Thursday night when it emerged all the players’ PCR tests had come back negative.
India coaches and players were
irresponsible to attend a book launch at a London hotel outside their bubble,
as revealed by Sportsmail, two days before the fourth Test at the Oval,” the
Daily Mail reported. Ravi Shastri tested
positive during the fourth Test at The Oval and has been in isolation since,
along with bowling coach Bharat Arun, fielding coach R Sridhar and physio Nitin
Patel. On Thursday, India’s practice session before the final Test was
cancelled after an Indian cricket board official confirmed that second
physiotherapist Yogesh Parmar had tested positive for the novel coronavirus on
Wednesday.
The Q everyone
has been asking is : - whether the Test has been cancelled ? – will it be
rescheduled ? – or has it been forfeited.
The answer could have significant impact. If the Test is
deemed, by the ICC, to have been called off due to Covid, the game will be
treated as abandoned. As a consequence, the series will finish (at least for
now) as a 2-1 victory to India. This scenario would also mean the ECB receiving
no insurance payout as it is not covered for this eventuality. At present, as
the ECB and BCCI sift through the fallout of the Test that never was, whether the match will
be finished in the 2022 English season, or if a one-off Test will be scheduled
to mitigate for the substantial losses incurred by this one.
Everywhere it is reported
that Old Trafford Test – the fifth Test between India and England stands cancelled on Friday (September 10) amid a
chaotic turn of events during which the host board's statement on the visitors
changed from ‘unable to field a team and will instead forfeit the match’ to
‘regrettably unable to field a team’. The Board of Control for Cricket in India
(BCCI) declared that they will make an effort to reschedule this Test on their
next tour of England in 2022.
The development came after
the visiting team was left on tenterhooks following physio Yogesh Parmar's
positive COVID-19 test that led to concerns that the infection could spread
during the match which was cancelled a couple of hours before toss. It is learnt
that led by skipper Virat Kohli, who had the biggest apprehension of playing
the game, the players, late on Thursday, got into a huddle and couldn't be
convinced by the BCCI brass to play the game. The initial statement issued by
the England and Wales Cricket Board categorically mentioned the word ‘forfeit’
but that was later omitted from a revised media release.
As of now, India are 2-1
ahead and have not been officially declared winners simply because there could
be a chance of the fifth Test being played during the window in July next year
when the team visits for a six-match white-ball series. "The Board of
Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) along with the England and Wales Cricket
Board (ECB) have jointly decided to call off the 5th Test Match scheduled at
Manchester in ongoing India’s tour of England 2021. The BCCI and ECB held
several rounds of discussion to find a way to play the Test Match, however, the
outbreak of Covid-19 in the Indian team contingent forced the decision of
calling off the Old Trafford Test Match," a BCCI statement read.
It is understood that
COVID-19 rule for the World Test Championship matches doesn’t include
forfeiture and that’s where Kohli and his men were able to get their way. Under
the competition terms of the WTC, COVID-19 is identified as ‘acceptable
non-compliance should there be a significant impact of it on the team being
able to play’. It could also have meant a 10-day isolation for some of the
players, who play in the Indian Premier League. There were many questions that
cropped up during the last 12 hours for BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and
secretary Jay Shah with a number of factors being taken into account. The
Indian and English players were supposed to fly together in a charter flight.
Also, deferring the game by a day or two would have caused logistical issues !!
In the game
of Cricket, a declaration occurs when a captain declares
his team's innings closed and a forfeiture occurs when a captain chooses to
forfeit an innings. Declaration and forfeiture are covered in Law 15 of the
Laws of Cricket. This concept applies only to matches in which each team is
scheduled to bat in two innings; Law 15 specifically does not apply in any form
of limited overs cricket.
Under the current Laws, a
captain may forfeit either of their side's innings. A forfeited innings shall be
considered as a completed innings. In
August 2020, in a rain-affected match between Durham and Leicestershire in the
Bob Willis Trophy, both teams agreed to forfeit an innings in an attempt to
produce a result. Here is what MCC rules say :
15.1 Time of
declaration: The captain of the side batting may declare an innings closed,
when the ball is dead, at any time during the innings. A declared innings shall
be considered to be a completed innings.
15.2
Forfeiture of an innings: A captain may forfeit either of his/her side’s
innings at any time before the commencement of that innings. A forfeited innings shall be considered to be
a completed innings.
15.3
Notification: A captain shall notify the opposing captain and the umpires of
any decision to declare or to forfeit an innings. Once notified, the decision cannot be
changed.
In that 5th
Test, Centurion, In Jan 2000, the scorecard would read : South Africa-
248/8d & forfeit; England – (target 249)0/0d & 251/8 - England won by 2
wickets!
History was made on the
final day when a match apparently reduced to the deadliest of finishes,
following three consecutive playless days, was brought back to life by the
captains. For the first time in Test cricket, innings were forfeited and this
produced a memorable, entertaining climax. When play resumed, with South Africa
still in the first innings, the many hundreds of travelling English supporters
and a few hundred hardy locals had every reason to expect the worst. What they
were treated to was a gripping finale that saw England win with five balls and
two wickets remaining.
Five months
after the match, however, came the bitterness of deceit when Cronje, South
Africa's captain, admitted receiving 53,000 rand (around £5,000) and a leather
jacket from a bookmaker, who had urged him to initiate a positive result,
rather than let the match peter out as a draw. At the King Commission inquiry
into match-fixing, which opened in Cape Town in June, he insisted that his
motives were "for the good of cricket", but the fact that financial
reward formed a part of his motivation tainted the match for ever. History
would also record that it was the first Test in which "fixing" was
proven.
Interesting !
10th Sept. 2021
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