COACH & CAPTAIN RUE VITAL MISCALCULATION

COACH & CAPTAIN RUE VITAL MISCALCULATION

 

Saturday, March 21 – Providence Stadium, Georgetown, Guyana:  West Indies coach John Dyson and captain Chris Gayle were disappointed men after a miscalculation led to a narrow one-run defeat to England on the Duckworth/Lewis system in the 1^st Digicel One-Day International at Providence on Friday.

 

Australian Dyson admitted the decision to call off his batsmen - even though his team were behind on the D/L sheet - was his blunder: “It’s extremely disappointing. It was getting dark. It would have been nice to be ahead by one run.

 

“I thought we were ahead of the Duckworth/Lewis when in fact we were behind by one. It’s my responsibility. That’s it,” he said after the match.

 

“I accept responsibility for it. I apologized to the team. That’s all I can do. It’s a bad mistake.”

 

Gayle said he hoped to learn from that error: “We are very disappointed in the way things went.  But it’s a learning process and we’ll learn. Hopefully next time we can double or triple check.

 

“The coach decided it was in our favour so we decided to call the guys in. But in the end, when we checked it, it was one run behind. But it actually cost us the game there.”

 

Gayle stressed it was important to look forward rather than dwell on the past: “In the end, it was just one of those things. We still have a game on Sunday. So hopefully, we can just put this behind us as quickly as possible and let us focus on Sunday.

 

“It’s hard. We wanted to keep England on the down. but there is nothing we can do at this point in time. We have to accept it and move on.”

 

Dyson was also keen to look forward to the 2^nd Digicel One-Day International at the same venue on Sunday: “Yes, that’s my mistake today and it’s a terrible mistake but there are still four games left and we’ll back up tomorrow (Saturday) and get on with the job.”