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Pietersen gutted after farcical finish
21.11.08Kevin Pietersen admitted Thursday's 16-run defeat to India in the third one-day international was a "bitter pill to swallow" after the match ended in farcical circumstances at Green Park.
England captain Pietersen finished the match remonstrating with umpires Russell Tiffin and Amit Saheba after India won the game on the Duckworth-Lewis method when they reached 198 for five in 40 overs chasing England's 240.
"I knew it would be difficult to get a game in," admitted Pietersen. "I mentioned it on Wednesday at training and I mentioned it the day before when we had a team meeting."
The match had already been delayed by 45 minutes to wait for early morning mist to clear, but despite being aware that light fades quickly in Kanpur, the officials opted to reduce the game to 49 overs and only shortened the lunch break to 30 minutes.
"It's a very, very bitter pill to swallow but what has happened has happened," Pietersen added. "I knew when the decisions were made that there was no way we were going to get this game finished. We tried to get it turned around but decisions were made and we can't go against decisions that were made by the hierarchy.
"What we were worried about was the half an hour that it took to start the game after the 9.15am toss. We wanted to start it as early as possible because we knew we needed to do that to get a full game in."
It was a particularly galling experience for England as Green Park has four newly-installed floodlights, but both sides agreed not to use them as they had not been tested before.
Pietersen also revealed England's concern about the sixth match in the series in Guwahati on November 29, which has already been brought forward to an 8.30am start.
"In hindsight I definitely would have used the lights," he said. "I think they are going to go back to the drawing board now and things are going to have to change.
"They are going to have to change for the sixth game in Guwahati, which is further north than here. We're starting at 8.30am there but it's still not going to make too much of a difference. At 4.30pm it's dark here so it's going to go dark at 3.00 or 3.30pm."
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Sour grapes: Pieterson won the toss and knew the rules in place, e.g that the two countries had agreed not to use the flood lights. Having won the toss, he should have opted to bowl first and controlled the D/L equation in the second half of the game. The problem is he had even less confidence in his bowlers than batsmen and both failed. All he can do is to blame someone else after the loss. The self assurance of Dhoni was in marked contrast to the desperation of Pieterson towards the end of the match.
- Nat, New Malden, UK
