Sure, there was heavy rainfall in Florida last week, but the grounds were hit by two days of landslides and only had about 30 minutes of heavy rain. Perhaps the organizers could have done better.
Siddharth Monga
On a macro level, the T20 World Cup has been a huge success. For the first time in a long time, the World Cup has felt like a World Cup. For starters, 20 teams participated. The event is being held in a new country, the capital of capitalism. The United States, co-hosting with Afghanistan, advanced to the Super Eight. One of the qualifiers in Group D was outside the top two seeds, with England a close second in Group B. There have been a lot of draws and close games. International players are in, it’s unpredictable, the matches are close if not high-scoring, and there are some dangerous situations for the more established teams.
But on a micro level, some of what happened has reached embarrassing levels. Heavy rain fell for only about 30 minutes on the Central Broward Regional Park Turf Grounds after 8:30 a.m. Friday, when Florida began hosting its three-game series. I can’t confirm whether there wasn’t occasional light rain apart from this rain, but we’re talking full-blown rain here. But no games were played on Friday or Saturday. Sunday is also in doubt, because certain parts of the outfield are still soft underfoot.
It’s hard to explain to any dedicated cricket fan that there’s no rain and yet the game can’t be played, especially in the US or even overseas where there are plenty of options. Having one side of the ground drained means that one side of the ground has good drainage and the other side does not. It’s hurricane season in Florida and we got unprecedented amounts of rain last week, so not fixing the drainage before the World Cup seems unacceptable.
In cricket stadiums with poor drainage, the whole playing field is often covered, but here there is nothing but a cover over the square and the bowlers’ run-up. For a World Cup, it’s not a good look.
In cricket stadiums with poor drainage the whole field is often covered but here there is nothing but a cover over the square and the bowlers’ run-up. Not a good look for a World Cup. I wonder what the ICC’s commercial partners think about this.
This is not to downplay the record rainfall the region received in the days leading up to the match, which caused severe flash flooding in and around South Florida. Cricket was nothing compared to that. The ground staff did their best on the day, but there was no way the umpires, who were meant to protect the safety of the players, could have sanctioned the match.
Again, this is not an issue of effort, it’s an issue of equipment. Although it didn’t affect the match in any way, the Super Sopper ran out of fuel on Friday afternoon (insert sarcastic joke about the US running out of fuel), then broke down, and was only repaired late in the evening. The lack of more cover provided by Broward County, which manages the stadium, is nothing new for the ICC. This should be part of the preparation.
The circumstances left the teams feeling a bit frustrated. For Pakistan, the second seed in Group A, playing Friday and Sunday’s matches was essential to have any chance of progressing to the Super Eight. For India, who played all their matches in treacherous batting conditions in New York, it was a chance to get used to better conditions before the more important matches. For Canada, the United States and Ireland, it was one more day in the bright lights before being forgotten for two years.
“As a team, we wanted to go out there and play the match,” India batting coach Vikram Rathour said. “In a tournament like the World Cup, you’re right that you want to keep playing cricket, so as a team, we don’t want to lose the momentum we’ve got so far. But again, it’s a weather issue, I don’t know if it rained here, where we were staying, there was very little rain yesterday. So, again, I don’t know what happened, how it happened, but it’s disappointing not to win the match.”
“We were really looking forward to playing the game and we were hoping for better hitting conditions than what we had in New York. So I think it was important for us as a team to play the game, but again, you can’t control what we can’t control. So it’s unfortunate that we couldn’t play the game here.”
India will go from a week of no cricket at all to playing three Super Eight matches in five days on three different Caribbean islands. Rathour will simply shrug and say this is not ideal.
“I think the next time the ICC reviews this, the ground should be completely covered so that as soon as the rain stops, the match can begin.”Imad Wasim of Pakistan
Of course Pakistan did not want to use this as an excuse and should not have found themselves in this situation, but their all-rounder Imad Wasim said the ICC needed to re-examine the situation. Asked about the ground not being fully covered, Imad said, “It depends on how the ICC reviews this,” he said. “If the wicket and the squares are dry… I would give one reason, when we play in Sri Lanka or anywhere else, the entire ground is covered. And the venue where the match is being played has around 20-30-35 people to manage this. I think the next time the ICC reviews this, the ground should be fully covered so that as soon as the rain stops, the match can begin.”
Existing cricket centres are not always fully prepared to allow viewers to watch as much cricket as possible – as recently as 2016, a test match in Port of Spain could not be played due to poor drainage, despite there being no rain on the day of the match – but the venue received justified criticism and low viewership, which will have an impact on the future.
There were informal discussions among ICC officials about potentially swapping this tournament for the 2028 T20 World Cup in England, but that never materialised as English summers are planned decades in advance. And there’s never the “perfect time” to break new ground, so you can’t blame the ICC for going ahead with this even though the playing conditions are less than perfect.
The Dallas stadium, run by Major League Cricket (MLC), showed it was ready; matches were played and conditions were fine despite unprecedented rain the day before and even the afternoon of the first day of play. The same cannot be said for the Lauderhill facility, run by Broward County. Despite having the best intentions, the ICC has left itself open to criticism for not being more proactive in preparing the ground.
It would be too harsh to quote Oscar Wilde’s “best intentions, worst consequences” line, but the ICC cannot be unhappy with what happened in Florida last weekend.
Siddharth Monga is a senior writer at ESPNcricinfo.