From Newsgroup: uk.sport.cricket




Lightmare at Lord's - England and Carse were CLEVER in using the GLARE
of the SIGHT SCREEN to CONFUSE Indian batsmen and getting them out.




https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/eng-vs-ind-why-india-found-brydon-carse-briefly-unplayable-at-lords-1496238

Lightmare at Lord's - the events that led to India's collapse

As the fourth evening drew to a close, the setting sun caused a glare
off the sightscreen that made the ball difficult to pick out of Carse's hand

It was twilight but the visibility was fine. There was no problem from
the other end. It was the fourth evening of the Lord's Test, and India
were looking solid in their chase of 193. The partnership between KL
Rahul and Karun Nair was going at a control percentage of 88.

Then Nair padded up to a straight delivery, seemingly misjudging both
line and length. Shubman Gill, who hardly ever plays a false shot and
had 601 runs to his name already in the series, came out and began
missing or misconnecting full-tosses and half-volleys. His feet hardly
moved, and his reactions seemed off. In his nine-ball stay, he was in
control of four balls and not in control of five.

Test batters don't bat the way Nair and Gill did that day. It turns out
there was a byplay going on here - a struggle to sight the ball out of
Brydon Carse's hand. This phenomenon can be best described as: when you
are seeing the ball well, you see a definite point of origin out of the
hand, but in this final half-hour or so, the ball was coming out of
somewhere in the general area of the bowler's hand. It was because of a
glare from the sightscreen just at that time, and just at that end, with
the sun setting on the off side of the right-hand batter. Carse's height
of release made things trickier.

Facing fast bowling is an extreme sport at the best of times. Carse's
average pace of 139kph in that spell converts to 42 yards per second,
which means you have half-a-second to play the ball. The extra
millisecond spent in picking the ball can be the difference between the normal, silken Gill and the uncertain Gill with cement feet and fumbling hands.

England had likely picked on something. In that four-over spell that
evening, Carse landed 62.5% of his balls fuller than a good length. Fast bowlers don't usually do that unless it is reversing, and Carse began
that spell with a ten-over-old ball. It was just that end, and just that height that was causing problems.

In India's first innings, Rahul had dug out a yorker from Carse in his
last over of the second evening. Whether or not it was something that
Ben Stokes and England filed away and worked on, England showed great situational awareness on the fourth evening to take two huge wickets
with the new ball.

In a way, this was quite similar to the over that Andrew Flintoff bowled
to Jacques Kallis at Edgbaston in 2008, although not remotely as
egregious. Back then, the dark windows above the sightscreen were an
issue. The windows were at just the right place for Flintoff to be able
to take advantage of, but not for Morne Morkel, who was too tall.

At Lord's, there was no such obvious flaw. Everything is pristine at
Lord's. But the sight boards are a little thin, almost like a mesh. They
are made of polycarbonate with contravision film, which allows vision
through one side and makes it look opaque from the other. This had
replaced the traditional wooden sightscreen, which had blocked the views
of the members.

That in itself is not a problem. It has never been a problem for batters except during that half-hour when the sun is just at the right angle to
create a glare just behind Carse's release point. Bowling full at such
times is clever, because full balls give batters less time to react, and inflict maximum damage.

Had it been a regular feature, the batters might have brought it up with
the umpires. India's reaction has been to shrug and move on. Not that
Kallis was able to do anything about a much more obvious glitch 17 years
ago. He didn't seem to try to stop play while batting, and only pointed
out the windows later. That didn't have any impact, as Kallis ducked
into a Flintoff full-toss that he didn't pick.

The period of glare at Lord's didn't last long enough for it to be
noticed at the time. These are the challenges and quirks of playing Test cricket at different venues that nothing other than experience can
prepare you for. It has been that kind of series for India, where they
have found ways to fall behind despite playing better cricket for longer periods. A brief window of play when the ball would be difficult to pick
out of the hand of a specific bowler from a specific end at a specific
time was the least expected way for this to happen.


--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2