The decision to introduce two divisions with promotion and relegation in domestic cricket was based on sound sporting logic.
It would give well-administered, ambitious smaller unions the chance to mix it with the big boys — which Boland have certainly done this season — and it would likely keep the season “live” until the final match with fewer “dead” games between teams with nothing but pride to play for.
While the Lions are well placed for the title of “overall champions” with the Titans and Boland in second and third place, there is an almighty scrap developing at the other end of the first division with teams desperate for the points they need to avoid dropping into the second division. They may even be prepared to go to court for them.
Word out of Bloemfontein at the weekend was that the Knights, who lost a sponsorship contract with ITEC apparently worth about R5m when they were relegated last season, believe they have been robbed of two potentially crucial points in the Cricket SA 1-Day Cup campaign which finished with the Dolphins beating Boland in a thrilling final in Paarl on Sunday. And they are considering handing their case over to lawyers.
It all stems from Cricket SA’s decision to dock the Warriors all five points they won by defeating the Dolphins by 126-runs in their first round of group matches on February 16 with an XI which did not include three black African players, as per the regulations. The points for the victory were duly removed from the adjusted log — but the win remained, as did the bonus point. An irrelevant oversight, or a critical, expensive error?
The Knights and the Warriors thus finished level with 16 points but they have to be split to allocate the five log points to the team finishing in fourth place and three to the team finishing in fifth place. Those two points could well be the difference between staying up or going down.
The Warriors were still credited with four wins to the Knights’ three wins and were therefore placed ahead of them. Had the Warriors also had their “win” removed from the final log, the Knights and Warriors would have finished level with three wins apiece.
The next criteria to decide final log positions is the winner of the match between the two teams. The Knights match against the Warriors was washed out and was a “no result”.
The next criteria is the number of bonus points earned by each team. Having deducted five points from the Warriors as a penalty for their indiscretion, four for the win and a bonus point, the Knights are arguing that the bonus point should also have been removed from the final log. It was not. If it had been, the two teams would yet again have been level with two bonus points apiece. Keeping up?
The next tiebreak is net run rate. The Warriors clinch it. But do they? The Knights appear to be saying: If you’re making the game null and void by taking away the Warriors’ points and giving the victory to the Dolphins, then the scores shouldn’t count either. The mighty 343/2 which the Warriors scored on that day, and their 126-run victory, should also be removed. The Knights in-house calculator operator has worked out that they would, in that case, finish above the Warriors and be placed fourth on the final log with the Warriors fifth.
The only remaining cricket this summer in which the promotion and relegation positions can change are the final rounds of the Cricket SA 4-Day Challenge. The Warriors and the Knights each have two remaining. The first of them is... against each other at St George’s Park. You couldn’t make it up. The Knights played some fine cricket during the first half of the competition and now occupy third place. The Warriors are stone last and would almost certainly be condemned to Division Two cricket next season should they lose that match.
Western Province and the North West Dragons are also firmly mired in the dogfight to stay up — any of them could be relegated though WP have three games remaining and thus a greater chance of moving up that log and escaping on the overall log.
There is an adage in sports administration which has been about for a century or more: “Do whatever you have to do, but do not change the result if the match has been played to a conclusion.” Financial punishments are normally the first option and, in extreme cases, a replay can be sanctioned.
This sort of spectacular butterfly effect has happened before when errant teams are punished by having a hard fought, fairly played victory taken away.
Usually it is the team itself which resorts to the courts but, as happens with the butterfly effect, it can be those caught in the crossfire and aftermath.
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