da dobrowin： Australia’s coach Tim Nielsen has questioned the wisdom of playingTest cricket well into the evening after stumps was not called until8.03pm on the fourth day of Australia’s match against South Africa inPerth
Brydon Coverdale in Perth20-Dec-2008
‘It’s a long time to be out on theground and it would be the same if somebody lost two wickets in thelast quarter of an hour as well, you’d question if it was quite fair’ © Getty Images
Australia’s coach Tim Nielsen has questioned the wisdom of playingTest cricket well into the evening after stumps was not called until8.03pm on the fourth day of Australia’s match against South Africa inPerth. More than an hour was lost to rain during the day and the timewas tacked on at the end, along with an extra 30 minutes to make upfor slow overs, which pushed the close significantly past thescheduled finish of 6.30pm.The light held out – just – but Jacques Kallis took advantage ofAustralia’s bowlers battling to stay at their peak and 27 runs camefrom the last three overs. “It concerns me when we’re playingthree-hour sessions,” Nielsen said. “It’s a long time to be out on theground and it would be the same if somebody lost two wickets in thelast quarter of an hour as well, you’d question if it was quite fair.”This time it was the bowlers that probably lost concentration andstarted to fatigue and got whacked around a little bit. I understandthat we’ve got a responsibility to put as much cricket as we can intothe day and make up the time that we need to but at the same time notat the cost of the level of the contest. It’s something we’ve got tobe aware of.”Perth is two hours behind Sydney and Melbourne and to cater for thetelevision audience in the heavily populated eastern states, play doesnot begin until 11.30am local time. Nielsen said it was not a problemfor players to adjust to differing start times but the issues occurred at the end of the day.”It’s even to the stage where we play some games under lights, somegames aren’t played under lights,” he said. “It’s a tough one that weneed to work out and probably get some consistency.”Nielsen said the players would not have finished their recoveryprocess until around 9pm, which made it a long day after they arrivedat the ground before 10am. He was concerned about how fresh they wouldbe for the fifth day as they aimed to collect seven wickets and stopSouth Africa from scoring the 187 they needed for victory.”It’s a long day isn’t it,” he said. “That’ll be one of our biggestchallenges tomorrow, to scrub up and be fresh and ready to go rightfrom the start to make sure South Africa don’t get away from us and wecan switch on from ball one.”