Let there be light?(-worma)

Martin Johnson writes, in his inimitable manner, about the whole issue of delays and over-rates and floodlights etc in Pakistan, which was taken all the proportions of a serious permanent headache in test matches to come.

There was a good deal of mirth around the ground yesterday when it was announced that play would be extended from five o'clock to 5.30 in order to make up for the time lost on day one, as the handful of vehicles equipped with headlights in this city are mostly on full beam by around half past four.

Although I would have thought there would be more headlights-fitted vehicle in Lahore, one of the prosperous cities of Pakistan :-)

And then, there is this one about the 'proposed' solution of 'extending play....tried day after day after day in this series. As if the authorities expect the sun to 'stay back' longer next day...maybe enjoy the match!

The obvious solution is to start earlier rather than finish later, but if you had to pick a sport in which common sense is rarely allowed to impinge, you'd go for cricket every time. Ergo, at 9.30 (half an hour before the scheduled start) you require a pair of fairly strong sunglasses, and at 4.30 (half an hour before the scheduled finish) it's not a grille you require on your helmet to make batting a less dangerous exercise, it's a Davy Lamp

I think India, the next visitors in the land-of-extended-play, would do well to reach a pre-tour agreement with Pak team management about playing hours, and the possible means of extension. If required, this would be an easier issue to reason with ICC on than the more radical six-day-test proposal.

There's another pearl in Martin's column, another one on the standard of umpiring

In one sense, Collingwood was fortunate to get the chance, having twice been given not out when edging Shoaib to the wicketkeeper. The umpire on both occasions was Darrell Hair, for whom praise for being the calmest man on the ground in Faisalabad when a Pepsi gas canister exploded may have to be reassessed on the grounds that he might have been the only one who didn't hear it.

And work load on umpires, as Martin points out here and Ricky Ponting did earlier in the week, is one more issue ICC can very easily solve.