England veteran fast bowler James Anderson has called for more leeway over the bad light decisions of the standing umpires. The weather in Southampton has been gloomy and the rain and the bad light has interrupted the Test match on a regular interval. Anderson feels that the lights were decent when the play was called off on the second day.
Only 86 overs have been possible on the first two days of the Test match and it has been frustrating for the players who have to go in and out every time there is an interruption. Consequently, the players from both teams have not been able to find any impetus in the second Test.
James Anderson feels umpires should back the fielding side
Meanwhile, the standing umpires take the light reading and the standard reading is noticed when the players walk for the first time in the particular Test match. That standard reading is then set as the benchmark and whenever the same reading or below is noticed, the umpires decide to call off play.
“It was gloomy but it’s one of those when it didn’t seem like the batsmen were struggling too much. I don’t know what the reading was (at tea). Maybe there could be a bit more leeway there,” Anderson was quoted as saying by ‘The Guardian’.
“The light has been gloomy all day and we’ve been lucky to get the play we have. It did feel like the floodlights were pretty prominent. The umpires take their readings, we can only go off that so there’s nothing more we can do about that.”
Only 40.2 overs were possible on the second day’s play and the play was called off at 6:27 pm. However, Anderson’s bowling partner Stuart Broad had a different view on the matter.
“The officials were right to bring us off. It had dropped below the darkness that we had come off for earlier in the day and all of our fielders were saying: ‘We wouldn’t want to bat in this, this is quite dark’,” Broad told BBC.
Meanwhile, James Anderson was able to get the wicket of Yasir Shah on the second day when the right-hander flashed hard but could only manage an outside edge to Jos Buttler. Anderson now has 593 wickets and he is seven wickets away from becoming the first Test fast bowler to take 600 scalps.
