CYMS intentionally left the covers off Wade Park before last weekend’s Orange District Cricket Association final regular season round against Kinross but green and golds president Gerard Hannelly says it was for all the right reasons
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With the covers off, last Friday night’s shower wet the pitch before Kinross batted to try and set up an outright win that would have seen the students qualify for the finals.
The students fell well short in that bid after being rolled for 80 in the second innings, thanks to Al Dhatt’s seven-wicket haul – he took 12 for the game.
CYMS president Gerard Hannelly didn’t shy away from the fact the pitch was tacky and he acknowledged freely it would’ve been somewhat difficult for Kinross to bat on in the opening stages of the day.
But he also explained his club’s reasoning behind making a conscious decision to leave the covers off, one he says was made following the ODCA’s by-laws and was based largely around ensuring the game went ahead at all.
“We made a conscious decision to leave the covers off, based on trying to ensure the game was played in full. The fact it started on time and was played through to its conclusion has absolutely vindicated that decision,” Hannelly said.
“We had absolutely nothing to gain by leaving the covers off to get any sort of advantage … or have the game impacted by rain.
“Our guys were going to finish first no matter what and we were going for an outright win like any club would, so we were going to have to bat on that wicket regardless.
“We were going to have the week off before the grand final, we wanted that game to go deep into the second day for match practice.”
Hannelly acknowledged his club’s responsibility to lay the covers at Wade Park as the side listed first on the draw, but also cited two more sections of rule B5.2 in the ODCA’s rules and playing conditions which CYMS used to make its decision.
The first, “covers are only required to be laid when prevailing weather conditions necessitate”.
The second, “in the event of the pitch being wet beforehand or too wet at the time the covers are to be laid, the responsible team is permitted to exercise discretion as to whether to cover or not to cover the pitch”.
“We have an agronomist in our first grade team who is looking at weather forecasts all day every day. We had a discussion on Friday night and he said of the three main sources he uses for that, two forecast no rain and the other forecast two to three millilitres later on Saturday. The conditions then were cloudy and windy,” Hannelly explained.
“He looked at that and the dew that was also forecast and based on that we decided that there was far more to lose by covering the wicket and having it sweat all night.
“Those few millilitres of rain it might cop, that would settle in and would start to dry up over the hours leading into the game and be a much more consistent wicket for both teams to play on.
“Based on all that, we thought it was a much fairer decision for both teams to not cover it … to make sure we got as much play in as possible on as consistent a wicket as possible.
“Our real issue is that we’ve been made to look like the bad guys when really we made what we consider and informed and now vindicated decision.
“Being absolutely honest, we did make the decision to leave those covers off to suit ourselves, because we wanted a bat and a bowl before the week off. We took the advice of a well-respected professional in that field and used our discretion based on that.
“It’s the nature of two-day cricket as well, that you’ll rarely see the same wicket twice in one game. You are never going to have the same conditions for two days.
“That happens even in the Royal Hotel Cup, the team batting second in those Twenty20 games don’t have the same conditions as the team batting first, let alone a full two-day game.”
In terms of the result Hannelly said there was two big differences in the game, and Al Dhatt’s bowling wasn’t one of them.
“If you look at it, Al took 12 wickets but he took six each day. The difference was Steve Geyer took to him a bit on the first day and Fletcher Rose also scored runs in that first innings. Neither scored any runs in the second and that is the difference,” Hannelly said.
“We knew we were beaten by a better team [in the first innings] but our guys knew if they pulled their finger out and played to their ability they should come through it. All the focus was on getting on the field, playing and securing that outright win.”
ODCA president Mark Frecklington confirmed his board will look into the issue, but it’s very unlikely that will result in a forfeiture of the game. CYMS progress straight to the grand final.