Dear Editor,
I excuse cricket journalists for not saying or writing too much on the Deonarine story and Duckworth-Lewis because, after all, one does not want to go around making the people with whom one works regularly, angry, unless one must. I am not a cricket journalist, so I am not subject to such constraints.
Narsingh Deonarine was selected to replace an injured player on the ODI squad in South Africa. He would not have been selected if the WICB did not think he was needed. Michael Holding said on TV that Deonarine never made it to South Africa. I had read earlier that the young man could not even get a visa to be in transit in England, one of the ‘Big Three’ of international cricket. Are not WI cricket fans entitled to know what happened?
In the absence of information people naturally tend to speculate. I recall some years ago while in England, Deonarine was charged with a serious offence.
The charge was baseless because it was promptly withdrawn or dismissed. One must ask, if the charge was the reason for the visa problem, whether today in English law a withdrawn or dismissed charge is tantamount to a conviction.
Finally, one must ask whether the WICB believes that there is no other way to South Africa than through Britain.
How many times have teams in ODI cricket scored at the rate of seven runs per over? The answer is, very few times. The number would be even smaller if the teams involved are the number 1 and number 8 with the latter being the one required to go at 7 per over.
The WI bowled very well and Russell fielded magnificently to restrict South Africa to roughly 6 runs per over throughout their 48.2 overs. In fact South Africa never reached 7 runs per over at any time throughout their innings.
Duckworth-Lewis, whose mathematics I do not question, mandated that the WI perform that near miracle in 33 overs. Naturally they failed. Chris Gayle went out swinging, which annoyed Michael Holding, who truly loves WI cricket passionately (something I cannot say with certainty about others).
I am not a mathematics denier, but perhaps more than mathematics is required in those circumstances, or perhaps those rain games can be abandoned and rescheduled if there are available time slots.
As the young people say, just saying.
Yours faithfully,
Romain Pitt
