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Michael Vaughan has blasted the playing regulations for Test match cricket, citing the near-perfect conditions it demands for play to get underway. He pointed out that there was sufficient possibility of getting play underway during the Trent Bridge Test but that stumps had already been called by the umpires much before on numerous occasions.
Play was suspended due to rain and bad light on Days 2 and 3 of the first Test between England and India. The last day of the match was abandoned without a ball being bowled, leading to the first Test being declared a draw.
The former England captain reckons it feels like they were finding reasons not to get out on the field. Michael Vaughan also wants administrators to find a color for the ball that could be visible under artificial lights too, so that the play can go on later into the day.
Speaking on BBC’s Test Match Special podcast, Michael Vaughan said:
“Test cricket, we keep saying, is the greatest format. Yet, it’s the one format that we try and do everything not to play. The umpires, it’s not their fault. It’s got to come from the higher up. It’s got to come from the authorities and the administrators and the ICC. You know what, we got to find a ball that if the lights are on, we have to find the colour of the ball so that we can play in all conditions! We can’t have the umpires going off when we have floodlights at these venues. It’s just not acceptable.”
Blasting the traditional rules that govern the playing conditions in Test matches, Michael Vaughan asked the authorities to get down from the ‘ivory tower’ and come into the real world.
“Over the course of the week, we were doing the TV around 06:15 (p.m.) on two occasions when the game had been called off. Bear in mind you can play till 07:30 (p.m.) and we were on the outfield thinking why aren’t they playing. Test cricket has to get out from its ivory tower. Get into the real world of what’s happening in our great game.”
Michael Vaughan also lauded the Sri Lankan method of covering the whole ground. He suggested that it could be adapted in the UK as well.
“You look at the covers. You go to Sri Lanka where they cover the whole ground. It is the covers that we need to look at in the UK. We have got these venues now with the so-called great drainages, but we are continuously kind of looking at the whole outfield and thinking is there another way of covering the ground to make it that when it stops raining, we can get out a there little bit quicker,” Michael Vaughan suggested.
“I was staggered” – Michael Vaughan on the exclusion of Moeen Ali
Michael Vaughan reckons Moeen Ali is the second-best all-rounder in the England ranks at the moment. He was staggered about Ali’s exclusion from the squad even in the absence of Ben Stokes.
“I was staggered before the first Test. As soon as Ben Stokes got injured, or raises an illness, you've got to go for your next best all-rounder who is fit. Moeen Ali is the next all-rounder. And they didn’t. And the think tank for me is not working before the series.”
The 46-year-old believes that it might be too late to include Moeen Ali in the squad for the Lord’s Test. Michael Vaughan added that if England find a dry pitch awaiting them, they could be in a spot of bother.
“Maybe they kind of get to Lord’s and see the pitch and go ‘OH!’ I feel that the horse has bolted in a little way, they kind of missed the boat. Can they play Jack Leach and balance it with three seamers? Probably not.”
The second Test between India and England will commence at Lord’s from Thursday (August 12). Both teams will look to take the lead in the series.
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