The weather forecast is grim. Truly grim. The chances of any kind of game today look minimal, with a sheet of rain across the south, and a venue that tends to be wet even when the rest of the country is dry.
It’s inevitable of course, and will cause some of the usual suspects to recoil in horror that there is such a thing as rain, but it probably doesn’t do too much harm to either side in the scheme of things given the format.
Yesterday’s game between Australia and the West Indies represented something of a triumph for the Aussies who recovered from 38-4, and indicated that they really are a threat to anyone this time around, without being quite convincing. It was the umpiring that caused the most discussion, Chris Gayle being given out wrongly twice, before a third slightly marginal lbw that should have been a free hit given the huge missed no ball the ball before.
It was poor, but umpires have bad games too, and the West Indies only got into the World Cup on the back of an umpiring error in the first place. Still, there will be two officials who will be unhappy with their own performances alright, even if blaming the umpires is an age old tactic.
Comments on the rain below.
Being Outside Cricket 
Of course, there were bound to be some matches lost to rain, but someone at the ICC is going to be praying the current forecast for the week is wrong as if it is correct we could lose 5 matches…
Aus showed that if you can survive the first 20 overs of the WI attack with some batting left, then the support bowlers aren’t as good and the front line bowlers tire a bit. So a bit of hope for some teams who have yet to play WI.
I’m with Holding in that selecting Roach instead of an all-rounder is probably a better bet than hoping said all-rounder makes up for this with the bat.
I’m sad that the Aussies are back in contention, really tedious.
Is there anything to like about that team?
SL will be most relieved about the rain. Pakistan are better than the Afghans with ball and bat, hard to see how SL was going to get any points.
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Carlos Brathwaitte has pretty much done as much as JP Duminy in the last three years of his limited overs career. Which is to say, diddly squat, zilch, nada, nothing. Many West Indians I have spoken to really wonder what the guy is doing in the fifteen, let alone the playing eleven.
Sure you can argue that a tail of Gabriel, Roach, Cottrell is too long, but it is not like Carlos has done much with the bat in the last three years to suggest that he’s significantly better than Roach.
The ICC don’t care about abandoned matches. It is as simple as that.
Unless one of the Big Three get eliminated on rain. Then suddenly they will think that, “hey if we play a massive 8 games a week, we might as well have some reserve days, just in case the weather misbehaves”.
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As an idle thought, I’ve often considered that when the weather forecast is poor (not today poor, I mean generally) it surely can’t be beyond the wit of cricket to take a view that play might be limited, and reducing to, say, a 30 overs a side game from the start is better than one side having 50 and then it’s abandoned after 10 the other way.
I know it wouldn’t be perfect, and some days it would finish in brilliant sunshine and we’d all go “oops”. But wouldn’t it be better than now?
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Definitely. Nothing is more frustrating than rain denying a result, especially when the result would have been pretty much guaranteed (eg. when rain falls in the 19th over, with the side chasing 80/8, chasing 300).
I just checked. Sri Lanka play against on the 11th, Pakistan on the 12th. So I don’t see how a reserve day would have been extremely rough on the players to be honest. As for the “loss in television rights value” nonsense, how valuable is it to watch rain?
Rain wins, and Pak have lost a point. Could be critical for their qualification chances.
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I don’t think that’s the tv problem with reserve days, it’s that they would have to keep the equipment there a second day, and given the other matches scheduled, it means to all intents and purposes that they’d need to buy an additional set of everything. Pretty big money – I can understand why the broadcasters don’t want it.
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I think you will find the problem with a reserve day is issues like policing, and stewards, and the whole infrastructure now involved with managing a major event in the UK.
It’s not the cricket, I think….it’s all the other parties involved. Security, travel, health and safety, food concessions, and the whole thing. It’s a sign of the times I’m afraid, but I think to have a reserve day for all these matches would be almost impossible in today’s climate. Many organisations just can’t spare or afford all the staff booked for a reserve day which may not be needed.
It’s why they would like to reduce test matches to four days because of all the costs for services on day five that often are never required.
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They don’t care about them Mark. When I was in Antigua and the Test finished in three days, the various caterers went on the fourth day to set up and sell what they had to any locals who wanted to come along and have something. They’d obviously budgeted for at least four days. There’s no compensation.
Food concessions cost a fortune in England, and if it rains, tough shit. It’s actually why the soggy burger and chips costs so much – they have to factor that in.
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But surely if the broadcast rights are worth billions (as the ICC and BCCI are happy to claim), might it not be an idea to pay a few million less for the rights, so that you know, cricketing ability on display is rather the determining factor for qualification, rather than the weathergods’ whims?
I know, it will never get past the ICC, but still.
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As for the costs for the caterers and all that, are they not put on 0-hour contracts and such? I am no proponent of these 0-hour contracts, but I find it a bit rich that organisations (like the ECB) that thrive on volunteering, and or cutting labour expenses as much as possible, even when it is inhumane to do so, can’t afford to pay the people who run the game for a single extra day.
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The food concession companies want to know if they will be needed for a rest day in advance of the event so they can allocate staff and costs. If you have a reserve day for every ODI match that Is a lot of potential costs that may not be needed. Slightly different for a test match where they can say we will block book four or five days, and if it it only last three well so be it. There is a good chance they will get four days if the weather intervenes on the first three days.
To be honest the food vendors are probably the least of the problems. When I attended England vs New Zealand in the Champions trophy a few years ago in Cardiff there was a major police presence outside the stadium. Traffic control systems etc etc. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but in todays World were budgets are tight in the public sector like police and paramedics it gets more difficult to justify.
The days of a few burly police officers directing things on the ground is now long gone. Also, we now live in a very litigious country. Companies, public services, & local councils are all worried about being sued if something goes wrong. I’m not saying it’s right, but it is what it is. This not the 1950s anymore.
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Apologies – I wasn’t disagreeing with any of the rest of it. Take my silence as assent!
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Police, fair enough. But why are police on a skeleton staff to begin with?
And how does that work with say football? If say Bradford are promoted to the Premier League, does that mean the local police department gets to recruit a few hundred personnel to deal with potential hooliganism? Now that Huddersfield is relegated, will the local police department be forced to let a few members of staff go?
Who pays for it? National, or is it the organisers who pay for it? If it is the national government, why is government effectively subsidising cricket? And if it is the ECB / ICC, why can’t they throw a few crumbs to the organising country to take care of security?
As a cheaper alternative, you can have say four reserve days at the end of the group stage, with a limited number of venues which means the costs would be greatly reduced. It is highly unlikely that there will be more than say 8 matches rained off completely, or that they involve the same team three times.
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Metatone: Pat Cummings?
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Starc’s pretty likable, too.
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Sure he wasn’t too likable when he gave Bell a volley of abuse when leaving the field in 2013.
I really liked John Buchanan when I met him.
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Aaron Finch.
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Met him briefly once. Very polite man. Said thank you.
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Was at the WI v Aus game yesterday.
It was a sensational start but Aus showed real grit (smith & Carey) especially to halt the wickets and regroup.
Coulter-Nile was a great cameo (unfortunately) but the general feeling in ground was that WI missed the opportunity to press when the main bowlers were tiring.
Braithwaite and Holder lacked the attack of teh openers and when they came back, the batsmen were more comfortable.
Smith and Warner got the expected reception, but as mentioned in yesterdays comments, the umpires got as many boos following the 2nd innings performance.
Gayle was a lucky man with teh first ‘out’. There was a sound as it passed teh batsman, but it was the ball cliping the stumps. I can see why it was thought to be caught behind. The “LBW’s” though were rather poor – especially when it filtered round that the actual out should have been a free hit.
But that’s the way teh cookie crumbles.
Aus just knew when to attack with their bowlers, who were a step above the WI bowling group as a whole, especially Starc who just seemed in a groove yesterday. The batsmen just couldn’t get him away, but WI struggled to keep the strike rolling over and didn’t really push the ball for 1 often enough.
Enjoyable game (even if WI didn’t win), frustrating at times cause WI just wanted to bowl short rather than at the stumps for teh Aus tail, and very hot in teh sun at times.
But £2.50 for a bottle of water and (think) £6.50 for a burger (£6 for a ‘footlong’ hotdog), £4 for a double Mr Whippy with flake was nuts. Didn’t see how much the beer was. (I did however eat every bit of food I took which was no mean feat!!).
At the very least grounds should have free drinking water fountains so you can get water easily as there was a few toasted people around!
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Yeah, I thought the caught behind was a forgivable error. It’s a woody sound too, so perfectly understandable. The others not so.
Don’t they have drinking water at Trent Bridge? They do at a lot of the grounds now.
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Match abandoned,
For now, no big deal, but should (eg) Pakistan be unlucky enough to lose another game to the rain, it starts to maybe really affect the results.
A thought on the rain catchup game – why televise it? why have crowds?
If the cost of those things is a problem, just play it behind closed doors.
Pay someone to liveblog it and put a fixed cam on the internet like they do for county games.
All of that is suboptimal, but at least the competition goes forward with integrity.
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