ENGLAND ON BRINK AFTER LATEST FARCE

THE integrity of the Twenty20 World Cup is under threat after a third successive Melbourne washout yesterday left England’s hopes on a knife-edge. The abandonment of the clash between cricket’s oldest rivals is an embarrassment for the ICC, who are staging this showpiece event in one of Australia’s rainiest months. And with more wet weather forecast over the next two weeks and the La Nina weather pattern compounding the situation, what should be one of the biggest tournaments in world cricket is in danger of descending into farce. Melbourne yesterday was wetter and colder than Inverness and Aberdeen, ruining what should have been a huge occasion at a packed MCG, with both England and Australia knowing defeat would leave them all but eliminated. More rain has fallen in Melbourne over the last two days than is usual for the whole of October and the MCG outfield has been saturated since Wednesday. It was then that England lost to Ireland when their run-chase was curtailed by the elements and the second half of the double header between New Zealand and Afghanistan was completely rained off. The same thing happened to yesterday’s first match between Ireland and Afghanistan but, tantalisingly, the rain stopped around the scheduled start time for England and Australia and there was brief hope a shortened match could take place. Yet it soon became clear it would be dangerous to play in such wet conditions and we had to go through the farce of numerous inspections when it was obvious neither the teams nor the officials wanted to risk injury and the jeopardy of a five-over game. ‘The umpires had some big concerns and I think rightly so because the outfield was very wet and there were some areas in the 30-yard circle that were not fit to play,’ said England captain Jos Buttler after the game was finally called off at 8.50pm local time. ‘As much as we all want to play, it has to be safe and it certainly wasn’t that.’ His Australian counterpart Aaron Finch concurred, saying: ‘The outfield has taken a drenching and was as wet as I’ve ever seen it. It’s about player safety. We saw one of the Zimbabweans go down the other day and running out there would have been a real issue.’ The lack of cricket has at least led to the tightest of Group One tables in this Super 12 stage, with only one point separating the six teams. It means England can afford no further slip-ups and are relying on other results to make the last four. Simply, they must beat New Zealand in Brisbane on Tuesday and Sri Lanka in Sydney next Saturday and then hope their net run-rate is good enough to progress. But England could have an advantage in that they play last in the group, so they might know exactly what they have to do against Sri Lanka to qualify. ‘It could work in our favour but, to make use of that, we need to win the game against New Zealand,’ said Buttler. The forecast is bad for Brisbane on Tuesday, while Sydney is having almost as wet a spring as Melbourne. The tournament is taking place now mainly because Australia are committed to touring India in February, the month when the 2015 World Cup was held here in glorious weather. The short, sharp nature of the tournament means reserve days in the group stages would have led to a logistical nightmare but at least an extra day has been put into the calendar for the semi-finals in Adelaide and Sydney and the final in Melbourne.