Thursday’s India-New Zealand game in Navi Mumbai has been billed as a must-win fixture for Harmanpreet Kaur’s team after three successive defeats. But according to tournament rules, they will be in with a strong chance to make the semifinals even if the White Ferns prevail over the co-hosts.
The reason: a quirk in the playing conditions and, more pertinently, the itinerary of the tournament which was finalised without much thought given to the weather expected at this time of the year in Colombo.
India and New Zealand are level on four points after five games, but the latter has had two ‘no results’, and with the first tie-breaker between teams having the same number of points being the number of wins, they will most likely have to beat both India and England to make the last four. They will be justified to blame factors beyond their control for part of their problem.
Out of the 10 matches held so far at the R Premadasa Stadium – with the Sri Lanka-Pakistan game, most likely of little consequence to the bigger picture of the tournament, left – four have provided no results, three over the last week or so. Of the other six, two were reduced to being 20-overs-a side contests with the victorious team, South Africa in both cases, more concerned about finishing ahead of the rain than about anything their opponents, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, could throw at them towards the end.
In the latter fixture, South African skipper Laura Wolvaardt even declined to avail the Decision Review System to save time, while even using part-time spinners just to get enough overs to constitute a game — not what one would expect to see in the biggest tournament in women’s cricket.
What has put New Zealand in an unenviable situation is that their games against Pakistan and Sri Lanka in Colombo, which they would have backed themselves to win, ended with points shared. After starting their campaign with defeats to Australia and South Africa, it has put Sophie Devine’s side in a predicament.
“If you talk to any cricketer, weather is probably the most frustrating thing to have to deal with and unfortunately, it’s out of your control. And for us, this past week, 10 days have been frustrating. We just wanted to play cricket,” the New Zealand captain said before the match against India. “You wait four years and you want to be playing as much cricket as possible.”
It’s no secret that one gets heavy rainfall in Sri Lanka in October, as it’s part of the transitional inter-monsoon period. The average precipitation in volume and the number of days it rains is the highest during this month, which should have been kept in mind while finalising the schedule once it was clear that Pakistan wouldn’t travel to India.
Not that there was no prior experience they could have referred to. The Asia Cup, held two years ago in the island nation, was similarly affected by the elements, prompting the organisers to take the unprecedented decision to add a reserve day to an India-Pakistan league fixture – only that one match – midway through the tournament.
Every team has had to play at least two games in Colombo — except India, that too in early October — and were often at the mercy of the weather. On several match days, it seemed the hardworking groundsmen at the venue spent more time in the middle — bringing covers on and taking them off repeatedly — than the cricketers.
One can call it bad luck or blame the vagaries of the weather gods, but there was an option to take some of the matches of the tournament to the UAE, as was the case in the ICC Champions Trophy earlier this year.
Weather and rain has been a part of the game ever since cricket has been played, but when it becomes such a regular — and predictable — part of a major tournament that it impacts who has a chance to emerge victorious, it somehow ends up impacting the integrity of the competition.
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