Kanpur: There were mixed reactions after the bad light playing an important part in recently concluded Kanpur ODI. Pieterson was disappointed with the results.
“There was a bit of a disorder and it took a bit long but we have to go by the umpires’ verdict. I thought we did reasonably well and though we ended up losing I think we can take a lot of positives from the way we played here. We came close here and we will try and win Sunday’s game at Bangalore,” said Pietersen.
Change rules
“We knew bad light was a possibility but then you have these half-an-hour breaks between the toss and play and at lunch and the ICC rules insist on these breaks adhering to these time limits.”
“Maybe something could be done about this when you know that bad light might come into play. Now we have a match at Guwahati later in the series and the light could be a factor there as well,” said Pietersen.
But Indian coach Kirsten said they expected Duckworth Lewis method to come into play. “We practised here yesterday and we watched the light dip and we knew that bad light and the Duckworth Lewis method might crop up. “
“I think we won a game on the basis of the cricket we played and we won it by the rules. The umpires didn’t set it up for us,” Kirsten said.
Praising the team
Kirsten was happy with the performance of the team. “Ours is a team that is focussed on the immediate task and right now we are looking at the Bangalore game and how we are going to prepare for it,” Kirsten said.
About Yuvraj missing his third consecutive hundred he said: “We never focus on individual milestones. The logic is that if the team does well then the individual milestones will follow naturally.”
He felt 240 was not an unreachable target. “I think they scored about 20 runs less. They should have scored 260 to be on par but our spinners did a good job as they have done all this series. “
“When we started chasing, we lost a few early wickets but Sehwag helped us comeback at that stage and it was good to have Dhoni out there and I knew he could win the match for us. He was the perfect man for us in that situation,” Kirsten said.
About Flintoff’s chat with the batsmen he refused to make an issue out of it. “He was the pick of their bowlers and he was being aggressive to help his team win. He got those wickets and he was just superb,” Kirsten said.