A good few days for Andy Flower as he presses his case for England's revamped head coaching position. Not only is he up and running, with a first victory since taking temporary charge in January, but his rivals are making the kind of mistakes that may count heavily against them in the eyes of Hugh Morris, the managing director of England cricket and effectively kingmaker in the appointment process.

Firstly, Kent, where Graham Ford is coach, decided this week to sign Stuart Clark as overseas player for the start of the county season, thereby giving Australia a pre-Ashes lift by helping one of their frontline bowlers to gain match practice after injury. Kent may well benefit, but that may not be answer Morris wishes to hear from Ford if he is called to interview.

And now John Dyson, another man linked to the post after his role in supervising West Indies to their success in the Test series. Duckworth/Lewis tables are not easy on the eye - those of a certain age before calculators will see comparisons with logarithm books - but to mistake victory for defeat by reading the wrong column of figures does not say much for his ability to work under pressure.

Cricket has a way of making itself look silly, and this game was a great example. Forget Dyson for a minute; we have all made stupid mistakes in our time. But how can a one-day game - where the whole point is the winning hit or the clinching wicket - be brought to an end because of bad light at a ground with floodlights? Regulations agreed before the series meant they could not be switched on.

And why were the hours of play extended after a rain break three-quarters of the way through the England innings when light was bound to close in? Surely a better option for the paying spectators was to cut the break between innings. Common sense may prevail, because the teams and match officials are discussing an earlier start for Sunday's game, or even using the lights if required. But why can these problems not be foreseen?

We had something similar before Christmas, when everybody who had been in Kanpur for a couple of days knew that the hours of play were unfeasible and that bad light would lead to an unsatisfactory conclusion. Thus it proved. India, batting second, made sure they were ahead on Duckworth/Lewis and walked off as soon as they were offered the light. Mind, at least they read the tables correctly.