Duckworth Lewis miscalculation blunder by West Indies Coach
West Indies coach John Dyson seriously embarassed himself by making a huge blunder today - the West Indies coach’s blunder in miscalculating the target score based on the Duckworth Lewis system meant England won the 1st One Day at Guyana by 1 run. As per the Duckworth Lewis method of calculation, the par score at the point in time when Dyson called the West Indies batsmen back was 245. Unfortunately West Indies were one short at 244!
What happens is that the Duckworth Lewis system is very sensitive to the fall of wickets. West Indies lost a wicket just moment before the end of play, and that caused the target score to be revised upwards. Johh Dyson was apparenty basing his calculation on the basis of 6 wickets lost - the time the rain began. However the additional wicket changed that calculation and Dyson made a fool of himself in front of everyone.
Millions of cricket fans watching the match live on TV could clearly see John Dyson frantically waving to his batsmen to come back to the pavillion, confident his team was ahead. As he and the rest of the West Indies soon found out to their acute embarassment, that was not the case.
There was some confusion at the end with the West Indies management trying to make some point - finally the match referee Javagal Srinath had to intervene to clarify to them that England had won the match by 1 run.