ICC defends 'No reserve day' allocations for WC league clashes
Abeda AshrafEditor
Posted - 2019-06-12T14:54:33+06:00
Updated - 2019-06-12T14:55:49+06:00
A day before, after an uncut Bristol washout of the Sri Lanka game, the visibly frustrated Bangladesh head coach Steve Rhodes questioned, when men can go to the moon, why there is no reserve days for league stage matches of World Cup?
A day after, the game’s governing body have tried hard to explain the rain rules of the mega event, defended their decision whatsoever for not scheduling any reserve days, citing ‘extreme complexity of delivering’ of such fixation.
Bangladesh's game against Sri Lanka was called off without a ball being bowled on Tuesday, following persistent rainfall. It was the record third match to be abandoned during this tournament.
Monday's game between
and
was also rain ruined after less than eight overs of play and Sri Lanka's game against
at Bristol three days earlier was also washed out.
In a full statement, ICC CEO David Richardson said, "Factoring in a reserve day for every match would significantly increase the length of the tournament and, practically, would be extremely complex to deliver.
"It would impact pitch preparation, team recovery and travel days, accommodation and venue availability, tournament staffing, volunteer and match officials' availability, broadcast logistics and very importantly the spectators, who in some instances have travelled hours to be at the game.
"Up to 1200 people are on site to deliver a match and everything associated with it including getting it broadcast and a proportion of them are moving around the country so reserve days in the group stage would require a significant uplift in the number of staff.
"There is also no guarantee that the reserve day would be free from rain either,”
he added.
In 1992 and 2003 World Cups, two matches were abandoned in each occasion that was the highest till to date.