Umpires deny anything farcical in Kanpur ODI

New Delhi, Nov 22 (UNI) Stung by criticism for the Kanpur ODI which had to be decided by the Duckworth/Lewis method, the umpires have shot back at their critics and said they did not see anything farcical in the way the match was conducted.

The third ODI between India and England at Kanpur had to be first reduced to 49 overs a side because of the 45-minute delay in the start of the play and then the home team was awarded a 16-run win under Duckworth/Lewis method after poor light made it tough for the batsmen to sight the ball.

The two on-field umpires - Russek Tiffin and Ameish Sahiba - were criticised for their decision to make it a 49 overs side match even though the delay was of 45 minutes.

However, the two umpires hit back at their critics and said they were ''amazed at the lack of knowledge of their critics''.

''We lost just one over inspite of it being a 45-minute delay.

That's big achievement,'' one of the umpires was quoted as saying by 'cricketnirvana.com'.

''Look we lost 45 minutes, but we made it all up. First we cut the lunch break from 45 to 30 minutes, then got another 15 minutes from the extra time allotted to both sides. We would have lost two overs if we went by this calculation.

''In that case, the game would have got over by 4.58 instead of a closure at 5 pm. With our calculations, at least we were ensuring that the game would go on till 5.07 pm. We had to ensure both sides get the same number of overs and we succeeded to some extent,'' the umpire added.

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