Match Abandoned as England and Sri Lanka share points

It was the band Crowded House who wrote: “You always take the weather with you.” For England that seems to be the case. They have had their second game called off since arriving in the West Indies due to rain.

The first was a warm-up game. Today at the Darren Sammy Stadium in St Lucia the game was called off before the scheduled start time. The Island of St Lucia has seen heavy rain over the past few days. While large parts of the ground were covered the areas that weren’t were sodden with rainwater.

The television pictures showed two England players trying to bounce a ball only for it to splash to a standstill.

It is not the start that England were looking for as they now share the points with Sri Lanka, a side they would have expected to beat with relative ease.

With the forecast expected to be more of the same England’s game against Bangladesh is also in doubt. The West Indies beat Bangladesh yesterday. This means if England’s game against Bangladesh was also to fall foul of the weather there would be no room for bad performances in the other group games.

In some ways, this will be a welcome result for Sri Lanka who are looking to regroup after their warm-up defeat to Ireland and under those circumstances, it is more points that they may have hoped for. Sri Lanka will next face South Africa in two days’ time.

With such a short competition, rained off games can potentially play a part in ensuring that teams do not qualify for the next round. It is early on in this competition. With only 2 points, for a win one rained off game shouldn’t make too much difference to the final outcome.