|
 |
 | | You are in: Cricket: England |
 | |  Tuesday, 2 April, 2002, 08:55 GMT 09:55 UK Bad light frustrates England  Usman Afzaal tries to keep an eye on the ball England are likely to ask the International Cricket Council to look again at the use of floodlights during Test matches after suffering in the gloom on day four of the Auckland Test. The fielders were unable to see the ball clearly as New Zealand progressed to 269 for nine - a lead of 311 - to revive their hopes of squaring the series. "It's something that's going to have to be looked at. Nasser (Hussain) told the umpires that the boys were struggling to see it and it was an unfair advantage. "It's probably the first time this has happened and I'm sure it will get looked at - we just got on with it because we knew there was no way they were going to come off," said England's Graham Thorpe.
The lights were used in line with ICC regulations introduced in May last year as the umpires tried to make up time lost earlier in the match as a result of rain. But England's problems were typified by subsitute fielder Usman Afzaal, who was forced to duck on the boundary after losing sight of a skied pull shot not long before the close. "It has set it up for them tomorrow, but it was tricky for the fielding side. "I was standing at slip and I had a black bush as my background at one end and dark blue seating as my background at the other end so it wasn't ideal," added Thorpe.
England were also out of luck with the umpires earlier in the day when home official Doug Cowie adjudged Andrew Flintoff caught behind, even though bowler Andre Adams did not appeal and TV replays showed no apparent contact with the ball. New Zealand coach Dennis Aberhart claimed, however, that the day's play had been a "great advertisement for Test cricket". A total of 417 runs were scored and 16 wickets went down in the 105 overs played. "We've lost a lot of time in the game and if we'd not been able to play under lights, the crowd would have missed out on something special and as it gets darker, it gets easier to see," said Aberhart. "We probably got more runs than we were expecting to get by stumps and that was the result of some really good batting between McMillan, Astle and Harris." | |
Internet links:  The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites Other top England stories: Links to more England stories are at the foot of the page. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | | | | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Links to more England stories |
| ||
 | ^^ Back to top | |
| Front Page | Football | Cricket | Rugby Union | Rugby League | Tennis | Golf | Motorsport | Boxing | Athletics | Other Sports | Sports Talk | In Depth | Photo Galleries | TV & Radio | BBC Pundits | Question of Sport | Funny Old Game ------------------------------------------------------------ BBC News >> | BBC Weather >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © MMII|News Sources|Privacy | ||
E-mail this story to a friend