Chennai: Former Sri Lanka coach Dav Whatmore Tuesday weighed in on the boundary count rule which handed England the World Cup, and said that the trophy could have been shared with New Zealand as it would have been a fair reflection of the two teams’ tenacity.
“There was no winner, so the trophy could have been shared. It would have been a fair reflection of both teams’ tenacity to win the Cup,” Whatmore told reporters here after the launch of Sports Exotica’s Sports Leisure League holiday programme.
“It is a learning curve. These sort of things could have been handled better, may be have a re-match, I don’t know. Before the sides came to the tournament, they knew about it and that is the bottom line,” he added. Whatmore said those who made the rule might not have anticipated such a situation as happened on Sunday at the Lord’s.
“I wonder how many people knew about it at that time. Umpires are humans as well. One would argue the same point for other instances which happened in the past. It is unfortunate, it has happened. After two ties, there was not really a winner. But under the rules which the teams have signed on, it has got to go to England.”
He said it was easy to talk about the issue in hindsight, adding he had not heard about the boundary count rule. “It is easy to sit here and come up with bits and pieces of rules that appear to be more fair. I have not heard of that (boundary count) rule before, run rate I have. These things happen one in a million times, probably more than that,” the Australian, who guided Sri Lanka to the 50-overs World Cup title in 1996, said.
Whatmore lauded India’s performance in the World Cup but said “those first 10 overs against New Zealand proved costly.” “I thought it was very good, it lived up to expectations. Unfortunate that they had a couple of injuries. The no. 4 position kept sticking up, asking for a better solution. India over the course of the tournament did a very good job, unfortunately the first 10 overs of the semifinal against New Zealand proved very costly,” he said.