Will it rain or not? That has been the big question in the lead up to India’s T20 World Cup semi-final clash against England at the Providence Stadium in Guyana. The rain has cast a shadow of uncertainty on the much-awaited clash, which will be a repeat of the last T20 World Cup semi-final which was played in Adelaide, Australia. For both teams, the final destination is the same — a place in the summit clash against South Africa in Barbados.
The Proteas blew Afghanistan away in the first semi-final without any rain interruption, even though there was a reserve day for that game in Trinidad.
Is that the case for the second semi-final too? Not exactly. The ICC has not alotted a reserve day for the India-England semi-final. With the capital of Guyana, Georgtown, witnessing decent amount of rain over the past few days, there is a possibility that the same might happen during the day of the match.
If rain does spoil the stage, India and England will have contrasting moods. While England will be left behind licking their wounds, India will book a direct entry into the final, mainly because of their higher position in the league and Super 8 phase.
While the ICC’s decision of different rules for the first and the second semi-final has caused an outcry in the media, the apex body has issued a clarification on the same.
An ICC spokesperson has suggested that since there’s only a day’s gap between the second semi-final in Guyana and the final in Barbados, the decision to have no reserve day for the India-England game was taken so taken so that the second finalist gets enough time to rest and travel.
“For performance reasons, to ensure teams do not have to ‘play-travel-play’ on consecutive days, the decision was taken to allocate the additional time for the second semi-final immediately post the game because the game is a 10.30am start, whilst the first semi-final is an evening start, which means it is not feasible to play all additional time on the same day,” ESPNcricinfo quoted the ICC spokesperson as saying.
Not to forget, the semi-final was played in the evening (8:30 PM local time, 6 AM IST), the second semi-final will begin at 10:30 AM local time (8 PM IST).
The ICC spokesperson also said that the overs will start being reduced only at approximately 2.40pm (12:10 AM IST): 250 minutes after the scheduled start time of 10.30am.
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