New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori wants tie-breakers banished from Twenty20 cricket after his side were belted into submission by the West Indies in their opening limited-over international.
“What’s wrong with a tie, I have no issues with it,” Vettori said yesterday, on the eve of the second and final Twenty20 match between New Zealand and the West Indies in Hamilton.
When the first match in Auckland on Friday ended in a tie at 155-all, the teams were forced to play a one-over “eliminator” involving three batsmen and one bowler to decide the winner.
West Indies captain Chris Gayle belted Vettori for 25, including three sixes, in his over while New Zealand were out for 15 after four balls.
The only previous Twenty20 clash between the two teams in 2006 also ended in a tie and was won by New Zealand after a “bowl-off” where bowlers needed to hit unguarded stumps.
But, Vettori did not believe it was necessary to break a deadlock in an international.
“I think a tie’s a tie,” he said. “I understand the appeal of it [an eliminator]. I suppose if you’re sitting on the other side of a win you might enjoy it. [But] the game’s called Twenty20, it’s not called One1. We don’t want to dilute it too much.”
Gayle, who quipped after the first match that “it was a good one-over game,” again threatens to be the central figure in the second encounter.
His man-of-the-match performance in Auckland included a bowling spell in which he took two for 16 and a whirlwind 67 off 41 balls with the bat before sealing the issue 25 runs in the play-off over.
New Zealand will be without limited overs specialist Scott Styris who will miss the remaining matches against the West Indies because of a broken thumb.
All-rounder Styris was injured during his short-lived knock of 21 from 12 balls on Friday when he was rapped on the hand by a delivery from Fidel Edwards.
The New Zealand management said Styris was to have a pin inserted in his right thumb.
There would be no replacement added to the squad for today’s match, opening the way for either the uncapped Ewen Thompson or Friday’s 12th man Mark Gillespie to make the starting XI.
After the second Twenty20 the teams move to Queenstown to start a five-match one-day international series.
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