The rain affected eliminator in IPL 2017 between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders sparked off a debate on the rain rules followed in the league. After David Warner-led SRH put up a lowly 128/7 on the board in 20 overs, the skies opened up and play was stopped for more than three hours. Finally the lady luck smiled on KKR and rain gods decided to have some mercy. The match which started on Wednesday night finished in the wee hours of Thursday, with KKR needing just 48 runs to win via the Duckworth-Lewis method and they won it handsomely with four balls to spare.
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The KKR owner and the Badshah of Bollywood, expressed his displeasure at the IPL playoffs not having a reserve day in case of playoffs. The Bollywood superstar tweeted: “Glad to be on the winning side tonite. But playoffs need to have an extra day in case of an abandoned match.” He was also on the verge of leaving the stadium when the match began. “Thx IPL for a great season & everything that goes with it. Time 2 leave in a bit if the rain doesn’t stop or the match doesn’t start,” he had tweeteed earlier.
Legendary Cricketer Gavaskar also slammed the timings claiming that it is unfair on the part of the organizers to expect the spectators in the stadium and at home to wait until 1.20 for a match to start. He bashed the organizers stating that as there is a gap of one day between the eliminator and qualifier 2, arrangements could easily be made to have a reserve day and the rest of the match could be played tomorrow with an early start around 7-7.30 p.m.
According to the prevailing rules Knight Riders could have got a full quota of 20 overs if the match started before 11:52 pm. The cut off time for the minimum overs to constitute a match i.e., 5 overs was 12:58 am while the cut-off time for the super over was 1:20 am. If the match would have been abandoned, Sunrisers would have qualified for the eliminator 2 against Mumbai Indians on the basis of their better performance in league phase of IPL. But Warner and co had every right to feel dejected as they were not given the full quota of 20 overs to defend their target and KKR cruised home easily.
The good news is that IPL Chairman Rajeev Shukla replied to SRK’s tweet on a positive note. He said that he will consider Kolkata Knight Riders’ owner Shah Rukh Khan’s suggestion of a reserve day for IPL playoffs. Replying to SRK, Shukla tweeted: “Good suggestion we may consider it for next season.”
