Cricketers affected by sunstrike need to realise its an outdoor sport and "toughen up" says Napier Mayor Bill Dalton.
Dalton was among those at McLean Park when the Black Caps vs India ODI was paused for 37 minutes on Wednesday evening after the umpires decided sunstrike made playing conditions too dangerous.
"To be absolutely honest with you my view is that these guys are sportsmen who play outside. If they get a bit of sun in their eyes that's part of the game. That's my personal view," Dalton said on Thursday.
"It's an outdoor sport and they've got to toughen up... It's all a bit weird to me," he said.
He said he was unaware of any plans to address the sunstrike issue at the council-owned park.
"I'm not saying it can't be done, or won't be done, but I'm not aware of any plans," he said.
Dalton said the council had worked closely with NZ Cricket in improving the park after drainage issues four years ago that meant it couldn't host international matches until an upgrade that took place last year.
"NZ Cricket have been absolutely fantastic. If they came to us and said we needed to look at it, we'd look at it," he said.
"But my view is it's an outdoor sport. I've been involved in speedway locally. When drivers came into the pit turn at certain times of the year they got sunstrike in their eyes, so they shut their eyes and hit the gas harder. It's just one of those things. I wonder if in India they go off the field because they have sun in their eyes," he said.
The pause in play occurred when India was India 44-1 and cruising towards an eventual eight-wicket victory. Baffled batsmen Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan gladly accepted the umpires' offer to leave the field.
The sun setting over the Chapman Stand was shining in the batsmen's line of sight, so play was stopped at 7.20pm as everyone waited for it to set further.
Both sides eventually returned to loud cheers just before 8pm after numerous inspections by umpires Shaun Haig of New Zealand and Shaun George of South Africa.
Such a delay has never happened in an international at McLean Park, but happened at least twice in domestic cricket.
The most recent was in last week's Twenty20 between Central Stags and Canterbury Kings when play was stopped for about 20 minutes around the same time.
Wednesday's match was the first international at Napier in two years, after the Napier City Council spent $5 million on a re-turf and new drainage on the outfield.
The previous two scheduled ODIs at the stadium against Pakistan and Australia were abandoned due to a waterlogged outfield.
After the game Black Caps captain Kane Williamson said he
"We haven't had to deal with too many sunstrikes. We knew in some of the domestic T20 games it had been the case. It is fairly considerable and it did have to happen," the New Zealand captain said.
"It's hard to move the sun and hard to move the grandstand. We didn't have either of those options so we had to sit down for a bit."
Indian captain Virat Kohli was quoted in Indian media as saying he had never experienced stoppage in play due to the sun.
"Never in my life. I actually got out in a game in 2014 because the sun was in my eyes. This rule (play stopping because of sun) wasn't there then. I am glad there's a rule now," he said.
NZ Cricket spokesman Richard Boock said "Its something we need to have a talk about and review in the course of time, but there isn't any immediate remedy that's obvious".
"It's something we need to have a talk about and a think about," he said.