The 2007 World Cup final played last Saturday had everything going good for it except for two incidents: One that was not in human control, was nature’s willingness in form of incessant rains. Two that was in human control, ICC umpires’ blunder moves in the end saw chaotic trappings galore, never happened in game’s history ever.
On field match umpires Aleem Dar and Steve Bucknor along with TV umpire Rudi Koertzen, fourth umpire Billy Bowden and match referee Jeff Crowe, exchanged a series of instructions, which resulted in a chain of events making mockery of a World Cup final, not many will forget in a long time to come.
In the truncated match where each side will play 38 overs, Australia won the toss and chose to bat. They scored 281 for the loss of 4 wickets. In reply, Sri Lanka, after rain interrupted the game again had a revised target with only 36 overs to be bowled. Three overs short of the allotted 36 overs, the umpires declared the play to stop due to bad light, hoping the remaining 3 overs would be bowled the next day.
Sri Lanka had already lost 7 wickets by then and there was no hope of their win with the required run rate hitting above 10 runs per over. However, what the umpires miserably failed to understand was Sri Lanka having played at least 20 overs in their response the match could not be taken forward to the next day and “Australia become the automatic winners”. Eventually, Aussies were ‘legally’ declared World Cup winners by 53 runs using Duckworth Lewis method.
Asked whether the umpiring officials would be disciplined for this, ICC CEO Malcolm Speed did not speak in the affirmative and he favoured the umpires.
ICC has apologized for the lapse. It said, ‘We sincerely apologize for that incident, for the error that was made. It was an unnecessary error, a fundamental error but it was made under difficult circumstances at the end of the match.”
Via: the-dispatch
