I read a tweet yesterday by one cricket fan in India who said “No wonder the English invaded India, they needed a warm country to play all five days of a test match in”
Looking at the weather in Edgbaston yesterday, the cricket fans at The Oval would have been muttering the same thing, mainly why would the ICC organise a global event in England in June?
Yes, it is supposed to be summer here but then does summer actually exist in England? That’s another topic which I will resist discussing till another day.
Okay, say the ICC did make a mistake by organising a major sporting event in June, we could forgive that one but they screwed up again by not having a reserve day for either the semi-finals or the final.
The ICC would like to think that they got away with it, the rain relented, we had a nail biting final and the fans went home happy. That would be their official line but it tells only half of the story.
The official explanation is that the ICC had only 17 days to stage the tournament, had very little wriggle room and the teams had bi-lateral tournaments to play in a few days time.They can give all the excuses they want but do they really think that we( the fans) would take such explanations seriously?
For the general cricketing fan none of that matters, what matters is that by not having a reserve day for the final of a major sporting event the administrators are just not doing their job in the right way.
If you do something, you have to do it properly. If you tell the spectators that the tournament is important and sell tickets and TV rights on that basis then you have to make sure that it is brought to a satisfactory conclusion.
Imagine something like this happening in Football or the NFL. There would be riots and in case of these sports such a thing will just not happen.
Yes, it was an immensely enjoyable and entertaining final. It brought back life into a tournament that was on its last legs and revived the interest level back in the one day game.
But to not have a reserve day for the final of the Champions Trophy left a bitter taste for fans of fifty over cricket.