What a farce! your thoughts please?

Tell me about it, cricket really doesn’t do itself any favours.

To be honest the ICC have been disregarding the paying punters for years now and are only interested in how much money they themselves make. We saw it through the Test series where the players were scampering off due to so-called “bad light” when there was clearly no threat to the batsmen! And today as you mentioned we have had the farce of taking the players off just 6 balls from getting a result, despite having had a pointless half hour tea break! Given all the interuptions, was that really necessary?

The sooner the ICC wake up and realise that cricket is here to entertain the fans, many of whom pay good money for a ticket (£60 for the Edgbaston game) the better! It's time the old farts at Lord's and the ICC realised that although they get in for a slap-up lunch, ticket to watch the game and as much brandy as they can drink all free of charge, the poor Brummie who saved up to see the match, had his sandiwches drenched by rain and still saw no result has been thoroughly cheated because of the antiquated rule book!

Yes, cricket has a rich history, and it has to be respected by us and everyone else. But if it is to be respected by the public outside cricket then the farce of todays match, and the many others ruined in this way (not least last years World Cup final!!) has to be brought to a halt. As George has said, they managed to make a decision about KP's shot within 24 hours, it's time they start doing it with a few more laws as well before the whole sport becomes a laughing stock!

New Zealand were robbed of a victory that was truly theirs, the players themselves were angry about it to say the least and whats worse.... IAN BELL WAS OUT FOR A DUCK! :(

Hey Joel

Mate 5 minutes was all they needed!! 5 more minutes and the game could have been completed!! England were more than likely going to lose on the D/L method, BUT i didnt care!! i wanted to see a result in the match!! The match deserve a result!!

Rule 43- Common sense!! a 30 minute tea break for the players after doing 1 hour 30 minutes work!! that is a JOKE!! In every test match players play up to 2 hours and have a 20 minute break (tea break), it doesnt make sense!! Surely the umpires had to know that the likeliness of another rain-storm interruptting the match was HIGH! so why eat up time by having a 30 minute break!

Now i dont agree with Ian Smith, he said that the umpires wasted time by looking at the Anderson 4 incident too many times!! Well that sounded a bit like sour grapes to me! because the 2 runs Anderson saved could have been the difference between the sides at the end of the match! Now if the players desperately wanted to finish the match they could have gone through the last few overs just a little quicker (or is that me just being petty)

Anyway how the umpires can stop the match with just 1 YES 1 over left in the match is beyond me!! The conditions arent going to get that much worse in 5 minutes!! so the players wont be in any more danger playing for 5 extra minutes!! AGAIN common-sense should have prevailed!! the umpires should have asked the players if they wanted to stay on and play the last over!! Obviously every player on that pitch wanted to finish that match!! what is the point of playing a match for no reason???

Steve Davis's excuse at the end of the match was a JOKE as well!, of course one of the umpires could have at least suggested that they cut down the tea-break to make sure the match would finish!! Umpires are not robots (ive said that so many times before) they should be able to make there own decisions instead of going by the book everytime!! By having a 30 minute break, the match has been cheated out of a result, the fans (of both teams) have been cheated!! and the fans at the ground (poor Kinney) they have been CHEATED! Waiting all that time to see a no-result!! well that is a complete and utter JOKE!

Anyway unlucky Joel mate, your boys deserved to win today!

Yes. It was cruel to New Zealand, and it is not the first time they had been cheated this way. See this scorecard:

http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/66...

India needed 147 runs at the 25 over mark (then the minimum for a match), and were 16 runs short at the 24.2 over mark, when the umpires took the players off for rain. It was highly unlikely that India would score 16 off 4 balls; if they did, credit to them, at least we would still have had a result. With Daniel Vettori bowling the 25th over, it would hardly have taken another 1.5 to 2 minutes to complete the 25th over. But the umpires took the players off and denied NZ a deserved victory. I keep wondering why this happens to New Zealand all the time. Tough luck.

The ICC has been a 'PURE JOKE', to use your words, for a long time now! I know it was not their direct decision on this particular game, but they set guidelines.

Decisions such as these are made to protect the players. I have found it a bit silly before in games where there are chances of washouts, 1/2 hour breaks are taken and the umpires make very little attempt to hurry play along.

The players are becoming a little too precious. It has always been one of the appealing aspects of cricket that the players whilst hailed as hero's, have been more 'real' than many other sportsmen (in Australia at least). This business of protecting such players like that does nothing but increase a sense of elitism that detracts from cricket.

They also took a few mins in the 18th or 19th over over a boundary decision.

On Sky, they've been talking about how Nigel Llong (The 3rd Umpire) had been talking earlier about the unwritten Law 43 that they are umpires are told about on their umpiring course - COMMON SENSE. How common sense should have said 'don't take 30 mins over the tea break', 'be quick with umpiring decisions' and, most of all 'Don't take the players off when you are 6 balls, no more than 5 mins, away from producing a result'.

Is it just me or does the ICC not allow the implementation of Law 43 because they either like to be farcical killjoys or because they no common sense?

The rules need to be looked at, quickly! The old farts at the ICC were quick to ask their entertainment killing counterparts at the MCC when they questioned the switch hit the other day. That took a matter of hours. Oh but I forgot, the ICC are money grabbing, fun killing, farcical b*****ds who mess everything up, when just a little bit of common sense would suffice.

Bottom line: Just another in a long line of failures, embarrassments and mistakes that make up the worst governing body in sport bar FIFA.

I agree. I know it was raining hard, but the players should have had the decency toward the paying public to see out one more over (whoever won). They seem to be forgetting that the riches and fame that are coming their way are because people spend money to go and see them. All very well hoping for a call up to the IPL, but they will soon lose their star appeal if they keep sheltering from the rain. Could have been worse though, it could have been bad light!!!!

i presumed that on the night Daniel and Rachel have been worst by ability of a few distance, Eoghan more advantageous somewhat yet nevertheless has too small a voice. i think of the three women are streets purely before something, yet i think of Diana, Laura and JLS would be interior the final, optimistically Diana will win as she has finished stunning each week.

The umpires were trying to go by the book, which is not always the best way to go about doing things ...

NZ deserved to win and they were indeed robbed !

Yeah it was really sad

Kiwis got robbed.

My stupid cable operator finally gave a chance to watch a good series but the rain ruined it

Say what?

Thats crap! I just got into cricinfo and it was 24 over game, so why do you need 20 overs to make it official?

I mean it seriously is a joke!