Stubborn ICC has tarnished image of the game

Bungling ruling body’s failure to reschedule has left World Cup looking more like a club league

Once again, the International Cricket Council has blundered and shunned common sense, leaving the

Women’s Twenty20 World Cup looking like a shambles.

It had been clear all week that it was going to rain in Sydney yesterday. I have spent a lot of time there and the forecasts are usually pretty accurate, so it had time to plan for this eventuality.

But instead of adding in a reserve day, or even shifting the semi-finals to Sunday in Melbourne and making it a finals day starting earlier in the day, it stubbornly refused to change. The result is, England go home having not had a chance to show off their skills in a semi-final.

India will be delighted to reach the final, but they would not have wanted to do so sitting in the dressing room watching it rain. It is unsatisfactory for everybody.

The ICC has said it cannot change the rules halfway through a tournament, and that all the countries signed off the schedule. But sometimes you have exceptional circumstances and everyone would have praised the ICC for thinking quickly if it had tweaked the schedule at the last minute.

Why not have a reserve day? If it is forecast to rain, then why not move the semi-finals to Melbourne on Sunday and have a finals day, like we do in the Vitality Blast? The first game could be played in the morning and the second semi in the afternoon, with the final played as scheduled in the evening. Yes, it would have meant teams playing two games in one day and television schedules being changed, but it would have been so much better for the image of the game.

Even a bowl-out, like we used to have years ago, between England and India would have been better. You have to handle some kind of pressure and produce a skill set to get to a final, not just sit there and watch it rain. It is nonsense. This is a World Cup, not some club league. Instead, heads were stuck in the sand hoping it would not rain, and England have gone out.

Some are saying it is karma after England’s men won the World Cup final on a freakish boundary countback super-over rule last year. That is rubbish. At least both England and New Zealand had a chance that day to produce their skills.