Napier: Cricketers from India and New Zealand should be tough enough to deal with a “bit of sun in their eyes”, said Napier’s Mayor Bill Dalton and wondered if players would have walk off if a similar situation arose in India The first ODI between India and New Zealand here on Wednesday was halted for about half an hour due to players being blinded by a setting sun, a bizarre first in international cricket which is otherwise no stranger to rain-related interruptions., “I wonder if in India they go off the field because they have sun in their eyes,” Dalton was quoted as saying by a New Zealand website.
“To be absolutely honest with you, my view is that these guys are sportsmen who play outside. If they get a bit of sun in their eyes that’s part of the game. It’s an outdoor sport and they’ve got to toughen up… It’s all a bit weird to me,” he added.
New Zealand Cricket spokesman Richard Boock said there was no immediate remedy in sight for the problem. It’s something we need to have a talk about and review in the course of time, but there isn’t any immediate remedy that’s obvious,” he said.
Indian captain Virat Kohli, whose side’s eight-wicket demolition of New Zealand was somewhat overshadowed by the bizarre turn of events, said after the match that he had never experienced a sun-induced stoppage in his life., “It was funny. In 2014, I got out once with the sun in my eyes and this rule wasn’t there then,” Kohli said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
The decision to halt proceedings was taken after the dinner break of the day-nighter, keeping the players’ safety in mind, on-field umpire Shaun George said. New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson took a lighthearted view on the situation. “It is hard to move the sun and hard to move the Grand Stand. So, we didn’t have much option and had to sit down a bit,” he quipped.
