South Africa – India one-off T20 game: A fair outcome?

The Indian Cricket Team traveled to South Africa just for the sake of playing a one-off T20 match. When a team is visiting another country just to play one game in the shortest format of the game, it is fair to expect a cracking duel and at least an outcome of the game. Alas, the hopes of the Cricket fans were belied, and ultimately it was the rain which turned out to be the winner: the game had to be called off after 7.5 overs due to persistent rain.

At the time the game was called off, the match appeared to be evenly poised. Though South Africa had scored 219 runs in the first innings, India was well on track and without losing a wicket they had scored 71 runs. And Virat Kohli had not even come to bat yet, for whom no target these days is beyond reach.

However, the outcome of the game was ultimately decided by the Duckworth-Lewis method, which ruled that India was 11 runs short of the supposed target at the end of 7.5 overs. Even the win probability of India was a paltry 22%. The outcome of the game was in all respects fair, though if rain had not interrupted the outcome could well have been different. Too bad the weather gods had too weak a heart to see another breathtaking chase.