Kent v Middlesex, Sunday League, Canterbury
Sunday 19th April 1998 - Kent won by 1 run

report by William Turrell, CricInfo UK

It was a positive start to Kent's Sunday League season
with a win and four points - but the game was decided in
farcical circumstances as the Duckworth Lewis system was
used to calculate the result.

Technically, Kent had won the match by 0.71 runs - but it
wasn't until twenty minutes after the players had left
the field in heavy rain and extremely poor light that the
situation began to become clear both to them, the umpires,
scorers and spectators.

The home side had been set 207 to win by Middlesex.  Put
in by Kent, openers Brown and Langer put on 35 for the first
wicket before Brown was bowled by Igglesden for 10.
Ramprakash and Shah were both out for 1 in the space of 
an over and after Langer was run out in disasterous 
circumstances for 41 it was left to Jason Pooley and Dion
Nash to rescue Middlesex who were 90 for 4.

This they did - an 83 run partnership from 13 overs that
saw numerous boundaries and few dot balls.  In the 35th
over Nash was clean bowled by McCague for 24, the very
next ball the Kent bowler trapped Richard Johnson lbw
for a duck.

Paul Weekes came into bat - Pooley managed to hit another
six (his fourth) before he spooned a catch to Cowdrey in
the covers when he was just six runs short of his century;
his 94 had come from 79 balls and as well as the sixes
included five fours.

Kent set about their task in worsening light with ever
increasing threats of rain - indeed the light eventually
got so bad that the light meter on the scoreboard was 
switched off.  

Kent suffered two early blows as their openers Matthew
Walker and David Fulton were dismissed cheaply by Angus
Fraser and Jamie Hewitt respectively within the first 
few overs.  Enter Carl Hooper, the county's West Indian
all-rounder, with Alan Wells (their Sussex signing who
came to Canterbury last season).  Between them they 
kept the scoreboard ticking with increasing speed as they
took Kent from 16 for 2 to 103 for 3.  Every opportunity
of runs were taken with few risks along the way.

As time went by and it began to rain - the Duckworth Lewis
calculation became increasingly important - the so called
'par score' being updated on the scoreboard after every
over.  The mathematical theories of such a complex calculation
do not easily translate into an easily understandable 
result for spectators - many of those at Canterbury today
were frustrated by how irratically the result would swing
one way then another - indeed Hooper's wicket took Kent
from being +3 (3 runs ahead of what they needed to score) 
to -3 (and due to lose the match).

It was almost inevitable therefore as the rain grew heavier - 
that as soon as the players came off the par score would 
be 0 - i.e. equal.  At least that's what everybody thought - 
including us at CricInfo and our BBC Radio colleagues.

When we investigated further with the scorers we discovered
that the par score of 115 for 3 from 26 overs was not exactly
115, it was actually 114.71!  Thus Kent had effectively won
the match by 0.29 runs (a result that will go down as a one
run win).  Such was the conclusion that many people left the
ground either not knowing the result of believing the match
to have been drawn.

 Contributed by William.Turrell (william@cricinfo.com)