Rain buys SA more time

South Africa, World Cup, rains, heartbreak…it’s an old cricketing tale. Today in the semi-final of the under-19 World Cup, another such chapter almost got added to South Africa’s cricketing history. Or, maybe, the inevitable has been delayed by a day.

As rain interrupted the second semi-final too, the D/L charts were out again and once again it was time for some fuzzy maths. Pakistan had entered the field chasing 261 from 50 overs, it changed to 252 in 47 overs after the first rain break. And with just seven balls to go for the minimum 20 overs needed to decide the game, according to the D/L method, Pakistan were 86/2.

They seemed on course to score 91 runs from 20 overs and enter the final.

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That’s when the heavens opened again and the match was stopped. With no play possible today, the game will now resume tomorrow at 10 am with Pakistan needing to reach 252 from 47 overs.

Brief scores: South Africa U-19: 260/8 (J Smuts 58, R Rossouw 53; I Wasim 3/44); Pakistan U-19: 86/2 in 18.5 overs (A Shehzad n.o. 40; W Parnell 2/39).