Barbados Royals secured a win over Trinbago Knight Riders by nine wickets in the Eliminator of the CPL 2024 at the Providence Stadium in Guyana. The match was reduced to five overs in the run-chase after a floodlight failure had caused a two-hour delay. Later, CPL issued a statement regarding the floodlight failure incident, which caused controversy.
Trinbago Knight Riders won the toss and chose to bat first . They scored 168 for five wickets in 19.1 overs. The match was interrupted when the six floodlights at the venue went off suddenly. This happened in the night around 8.58 pm, and TRK players walked off the field.
Deighton Butler and Nigel Duguid were the on-field umpires who put forward their opinions on the lighting level, and said it is unsafe for play to continue. Keeping in mind the importance of the match, both teams were provided the option to play in dim light.
While the Barbados Royals were willing to continue, the Trinbago Knight Riders rejected the idea and agreed not to play in such conditions.
In response, the Barbados Royals were allotted a hunt target of 60 in just five overs, where David Miller exploded with a smashing 17-ball half-century.
Reon King, CWI senior Match Referee, who was in charge of the Playing Control Team on the night, said: “The Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League playing conditions allow for one hour extra time to be added to a game before overs are lost, and a failure of floodlights is treated in exactly the way as an interruption for rain. The priority for the match officials team is always the safety of players, but they also work to see if a game’s outcome, one way or another, can be achieved on the field of play. This was the focus applied during the Eliminator match.”
In a statement from the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, together with Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL), two floodlights were quickly restored, with the third, although functional, suffering from a “technical fault” in the underground cable supplying its power. Reports say the underground cable was burned and, therefore, replaced.
They Stated, “The Stadium’s Technical staff and GPL continued to try and solve the problem with the third Floodlight, which had a small underground cable feeding power to that Floodlight was faulty, a replacement cable was brought in to have the Floodlight back on. This was achieved around 10.51 pm.”
