D/L should not decide winners

India and Australia was washed out and thus the final result of the tournament might well boil down to the Duckworth-Lewis system and that would be a shame, writes Bob Woolmer.

The weather in Amsterdam has been pretty wet and it does make a difference to the players, the uncertainty as to when play may or may not start creates a sort of strange energy. Playing India creates the motivation for the Pakistan team; so eager were they to play the youngsters, they created these pseudo games against a dustbin -- one hand one bounce. It was like they were playing in the streets again as we all did when we were young.

Keeping the team relaxed is difficult during this period and indeed nutritionally quite a problem. Food of course provides energy and when it became apparent that we were going to start late and that the break would only be ten minutes between the innings there was tremendous activity around the lunch table. This is one of the reasons that trainers and physios have to undergo nutritional courses in order that they can help the players prepare properly. Science is all around us now!

The lovely Amstelveen ground was under water the day before the first game of the Videocon Cup, it dries superbly but eventually the amount of water that it had to take was just too much. The ground staff was under pressure to get the game started as by 12 noon the ground was packed to the rafters. Pakistan supporters on one side of the ground and Indian supporters on the other, a few were intermingled. They were very well behaved of course until the final wicket was taken, and then the security was never going to be enough to contain an excited group of spectators. Fortunately no harm came to any one and it has to be said that the fans were extremely well behaved.

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