Malaysian Tri-Series hots up!

Wednesday 13th,
Day off today but there was no time for rest, Tony Greig, Kapil Dev, John Rhodes (ICC anti-corruption officer) and me had arranged a game of golf. We played at the Royal Selangor Golf Club which although they are doing some serious repair work to 18 holes of the course there was still 18 to play and they were in terrific condition. This course is not far away from the Traders hotel where we are staying and is open to non-members. It was hot and humid with some classic Malaysian rain showers during the round but they have shelters all the way round the course so we didn’t get too wet. Kapil is a lovely player off a 3 handicap, Tony and John play off 15 and I played off my Wollaton Park handicap of 8. Unfortunately, John and I lost to Kapil and Tony on the last hole.

Thursday 14th,
India were playing their first game of the series against the West Indies . India won the toss and decided to bat. This gave the great man Sachin the opportunity to bat on his return from the serious shoulder injury. It didn’t seem as though he’d been away as he blasted the WI bowling attack all over the Kinrara Oval for a magnificent 140. India looked in great shape to win the game as the second innings started but WI made a good start to their innings and at 20 overs were 140 odd for 2 when rain came. Now 20 overs constitutes a game in ODI cricket and the rain started exactly on 20 overs and it didn’t stop, under the Duckworth/ Lewis method WI won by 29 runs. It’s always a difficult way to end a game but I was warned that this is the monsoon season so it wasn’t unexpected. One win each for the Windies and the Aussies!
Today is ‘Chinese air force day’ (Fly day) and it’s another day of golf but this golf game is different because we’re playing with royalty! We have been invited to play at Saujana Golf Club by the Prince of this region Yang Amat Mulia Tunku Tan Sri Imran Ibni Tuanku Ja’afar , thankfully known as Tunku Imran or Pete to his golfing pals! There are 8 of us, a four-ball that has been organised by the prince and our usual suspects. Kapil played in the four-ball with the Prince so Devin Nair -who works for the McGirvan Media group- played with Tony, John and myself. It was a beautiful course (fact they’d played the European Tour Master tournament there some months earlier so you can imagine what it was like). The course name is Malay for big Cobra and there was a message on the 8th tee not to go into the hazard on the 8th and 9th hole because a big Cobra had been spotted earlier in the day. Needless to say we all aimed well away from trouble!!!! John and I got our revenge on Tony and it all ended with all of us sharing a beer in the 19th!

Saturday 16th,
India had to play Australia. The crowds had been disappointing for the first 2 matches but for this game it was a sell-out. Australia won the toss and as with all the other games they decided to bat first but it didn’t all got to plan as Australia could only muster 244. Ponting and Katich made fifties but it was a tough slog with some good bowling, particularly from Harbhajan Singh and Verinder Sehwag who both found some turn in this pitch. It rained just before the lunch break which caused a very humorous scene. There were 7 balls remaining of the Aussie innings and the TV crew thought that we would take lunch immediately and finish the 7 balls afterwards. In fact no sooner had the rain started when it stopped so the umpires decided to go straight back out again and finish the innings before lunch. We informed the TV director who then informed us that he had no cameramen at their stations because they were all in lunch stuffing their faces. The funny sight came when we saw 3 cameramen running to their positions, one of whom was still carrying his lunch!

The innings only lasted 2 balls before McGrath was out; I hope they didn’t get indigestion from having to balk their lunch too quickly! Rain was to play a big part in this match because no sooner had the Indian innings started than it rained again, forcing the players off the field. They came back a little later with a reduced target in 29 overs. This meant that they had to play some shots and this played nicely into Mitchell Johnsons’ hands as the left-armer got the ball in the right areas and picked up 4 wickets for virtually nothing to have the Indians reeling at 35-5. But the rain started again and the game was washed out. This no result left the Indians at the bottom of the table at the half way stage. Australia were top and the Windies just behind.
Sunday was a rest day. No golf either, although I had been asked to go to a local radio station -Radio 4- and take part in a Sports Talk programme. There were certain parameters to the interview, I would be able to talk about the Darrell Hair incident at the Oval, I wouldn’t talk about ball tampering and I wouldn’t talk about bowling actions. The discussion went well, we talked about my role as a referee, some of the more difficult situation I have to deal with and about this series. Tony got on his high horse about the prices of tickets for this series which I think he was right to raise. If the organizers are trying to attract people to support the game in this part of the world then the price of tickets has got to be set at a level which everyone can afford. $50 US is too expensive for a lot of people in these parts! Anyway the interview over it was back to the hotel. During our journey back I got a phone call from the organiser of the event who asked me to pop into his room when I got back to the hotel because he had something to discuss with me. Intrigued I went straight up to his room and he told me that there were plans to possibly change the starting times of the games in an effort to beat the weather and get more cricket. This was motivated by TV and Indian audiences, both Indian matches had been affected by the rain. There were 3 options:
1) To leave things as they were and hope the rain doesn’t fall
2) To move all the remaining matches to day games and start them at 10am in the hope that the game would be over before the rain comes in the afternoon.
3) Start each game at 1.30pm instead of 2.30pm. This would allow an extra hour should there be any rain.
After some discussion it was decided to go with idea number three but it still had to be passed by the teams. Brendan McClements -the Tournament Director- was left in charge of phoning the managers and running it passed them. This was done and everything was agreed. For the rest of the afternoon I met up with the umpires who were going shopping and seeing some of the sights of Kuala Lumpur . KL does have some wonderful shops and is a little bit cheaper than the shops back home, it was just great to see so many people out enjoying themselves on a Sunday, I am a great people watcher! I bought some shoes and a couple of DVD’s but was a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon. (don’t tell my wife!)

Monday and another game day played under these slightly different rules. We were greeted by a fantastic day, not a cloud in the sky and no sign of any rain anywhere, typical! It was a very exciting game today with Australia playing West Indies and as per usual Australia won the toss and decided to bat. They got into trouble losing early wickets but Hayden and Hussey set West Indies a stiff target of 273 to win in their 50 overs. The Windies got off to a slow start but when Lara got together with Gayle they got on top of the Aussies and it looked like there could only be one winner. Then the Windies had a middle order wobble losing Gayle and Lara, the latter being caught off the back of the bat whilst going for a hook! But Bravo saw them home with some controlled stroke play and the odd huge hit. This result put the cat amongst the pigeons as far as the Indians were concerned because the Windies had now won 2 games and were guaranteed a place in the final which meant the Indians had to win both their remaining games against West Indies and Australia to have any chance of getting into the final themselves. Very interesting!!!