Ind Vs NZ 1st ODI: Sun stops play for half an hour at McLean Park!
Napier, Jan 23: Sun stops play after dinner. Sounds bizarre? But this is what happened in the first India-New Zealand ODI at the McLean Park Wednesday.
Rain interruption in international cricket bringing the Duckworth-Lewis method into consideration is nothing new. But here it was the sun that troubled the batsmen by coming right in the line of their view, forcing play to stop for about half an hour.
Indian captain Virat Kohli, whose side's eight-wicket demolition of New Zealand was somewhat overshadowed by the bizarre turn of events, said he has never experienced a sun-induced stoppage in his life.
"Never in my life," he said when asked about the halt due to which the target was revised by two runs and the match shortened by an over.
"It was funny. In 2014, I got out once with the sun in my eyes and this rule wasn't there then," Kohli said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
The decision to halt proceedings was taken after the dinner break of the day-nighter, keeping the players' safety in mind, on-field umpire Shaun George said.
"The setting sun is in the eyes of the players and we need to think of their safety as well as umpires. There was an awareness of it by the players (they didn't appeal)," said the umpire.
New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson also took a lighthearted view on the situation.
"It is hard to move the sun and hard to move the Grandstand. So, we didn't have much option and had to sit down a bit," he quipped.
Stoppages due to sun have been witnessed in the past here during the domestic competitions, and reportedly, also at few English grounds, but none of them were international matches.
In 1980, and India-England Test match in Mumbai, called Bombay at the time, was brought forward by a day due to a solar eclipse.
"We had talked about it in the pre-series chat. It's something different," said New Zealand star batsman Ross Taylor.
Normally, the cricket pitches are positioned in the North-South direction to avoid this scenario, but at McLean Park, the pitch is East-West facing.
"We are trying to find out ways to deal with this problem," said Napier's Mayor Bill Dalton while talking to official broadcaster 'Star Sports'.
"We were very conscious that this would happen and had made a plan for it. We are absolutely committed to make this the biggest multi-use sports ground in New Zealand."
Chasing 158, India were cruising at 44 for one in 10 overs when play was stopped. Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan were batting on 2 and 29 respectively.
The interruption, however, only managed to delay the inevitable.
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Mizoram class 12 results out, pass percentage at 87.67
Aizawl (PTI): Mizoram recorded a pass percentage of 87.67 in the class 12 board examinations on Wednesday, with boys scoring marginally higher than girls,
Across the Arts, Science, and Commerce streams, boys secured an 87.7 per cent success rate, while girls followed closely at 87.66 per cent, according to the results published by the Mizoram Board of School Education (MBSE).
Of the 12,243 students who sat for the examinations held between February and March, 10,734 passed, 1,394 could not, and 115 qualified for compartmental examinations.
Academic performance was strongest in the Commerce stream, which saw a 90.51 per cent success rate among 759 candidates.
The Science stream followed with 89.24 per cent pass rate out of 2,770 students who appeared for the exam, while the Arts stream, with 87,14 students, recorded a pass percentage of 86.93.
In terms of institutional performance, the results revealed that deficit schools, which receive regular government grants, maintained their status as top performers with an average 93.80 per cent pass rate across all streams, followed by private schools at 91.55 per cent, while state-run schools recorded a success rate 83.13 per cent.
