India, NZ share points after another washout

The frustrating English weather finally caught up with the Indian team as their third World Cup game against New Zealand was called off without a ball being bowled here Thursday.

New Zealand have seven points from four games while Indianow have five from three with the next game against Pakistan in Manchester onSunday.

   

Incidentally, the weather Gods are threatening to playspoilsport over there too.

The toss was delayed due to inclement weather and in the endit never took place. An inspection was to happen at 3 pm IST, the scheduledstart time, but was put off after it started raining again.

The outfield was pretty wet after heavy showers in the pasttwo days.

The umpires had one last inspection at 7:30pm IST beforetaking the decision to abandon the match.

This was the fourth such game in the ongoing tournament thathas not yielded any result, something that will certainly increase ICC’s worry.

While both the teams share a point each, the practicaldifficulties of not having a reserve day as stated by the ICC CEO DavidRichardson is certainly leaving the fans, especially the Indians high and dry.

Indian captain Virak Kohli said it was a sensible decisionto call off the match.

“Sensible decision to not play, given the outfieldwasn’t fully fit (sic). One point not a bad thing for sides that have won alltheir games so far. So we’ll take it,” he said.

New Zealand captain Kane Williamson said it was not an idealsituation but in a way a good chance for the players to get some rest.

“(It has) been about four days and we haven’t seen thesun, so this doesn’t surprise us. It’s not ideal, but little bit of time off isalso important. We have some break now midway through, so it’s a good chancefor the guys to freshen up and look forward to the next challenge,” hesaid. 

The ICC refunds tickets if a single ball is not bowled butthe hundreds of fans who have bought overpriced tickets from a third party arecertain to lose money.

“I have paid 800 GBP (more than 70k INR) for a ticket. I am losing a lot of money. The black market rate for a Pakistan game is 2000 GBP. I can’t afford that,” said a software engineer who has come all the way from Singapore. The broadcasters, however, can heave a sigh of relief as all the matches are insured and they can make up for losses. PTI

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