Moeen says lessons must be learnt from rain drama
Moeen Ali said T10’s players and officials need to work together to avoid a repeat of the farcical scenes that potentially cost his Team Abu Dhabi side a crucial win on Wednesday night.
The final match of a storm-affected day at the Zayed Cricket Stadium had been delicately poised when rain returned 2.2 overs in to Deccan Gladiators’ run chase against Moeen’s team.
At that point, they were on 25-1, requiring 119 to win from the full 10 overs.
The delay for the shower reduced that target to 62 from five – which is the minimum number of overs required for a result.
Although the groundstaff cleared the covers in good time, and the players were ready to restart, the delay continued with umpires and team officials in discussion on the boundary line.
The debate continued for long enough for the time to pass its official cut off for a restart, and thus the match was declared a no result.
It emerged that the delay centred on the fact printouts of the Duckworth Lewis Stern rain-revision calculations were not provided for the teams.
The lack of communication extended to the stands, where those fans who had stayed on in anticipation of a result were left uninformed of what was going on.
“Match officials confirmed play would resume at 9.46pm, with the view to reduce the match to five overs, implementing the [DLS],” the organisers wrote in a statement the following morning.
“DLS target discussions continued between team management and match officials as both teams took to the field.
“Supporting documentation was requested, and this was not immediately available before the scheduled 9.59 pm cut-off time. The match referee subsequently decided to abandon the match.”
Each team received a point for the no result, which will suit the Gladiators, who top the table. Team Abu Dhabi, though, are now struggling to make it through to the playoff stage.
“It is a bit frustrating but we are professional players, and
I’m sure everyone throughout their career would have experienced something like this before,” Moeen, Team Abu Dhabi’s captain, said.
“These things happen. It is not a T20, where everything is laid out for you. T10 is quite new. It is a great format, and maybe we can get together as players and officials and work something out better, but it is fine.
“We still have a slim chance. Hopefully, if things go our way, we can still get through.
“I’m sure everybody is going to learn from this, and something will come up and I think we just need to work it out as a group of players and with the guys behind the scenes.”