Rain has stopped play in Colombo during the India vs Pakistan Super 4 clash in Asia Cup 2023 on Sunday. The play will resume with Team India resuming their innings at 24.1 overs on Monday after rain washed out play on Sunday.
While the fans will be eager to see the two teams in action, the threat of rain still looms large over the mega event.
hubman Gill raced past his second consecutive ODI half century as he and Rohit Sharma flattened the menacing Pakistan pace attack for the better part of the first 20 overs after Babar Azam won the toss and chose to bowl first. Their opening partnership soared past 100 within the first 14 overs.
Gill got to his half century in 37 balls while Rohit got there soon therafter with a six, reaching his milestone in 42 balls. Pakistan eventually came back strong with Shadab and Afridi dismissing Rohit and Gill respectively in consecutive games.
It brought Virat Kohli and KL Rahul, with the latter taking the injured Shreyas Iyer’s place at No.4. The partnership between the pair was on 24 off 38 balls for the third wicket when heavy rain suddenly made an appearance and forced the players off the ground. Rain was always in the forecast for the day and while much of the day was sunny, once it started pouring, it never really stopped. While it paused for a long period, a wet patch on the outfield was taking a long time to be dried.
However, it looked like the umpires were happy with how it looked at one point and we seemed set for a restart. Overs would have been reduced and Pakistan were most probably set to be presented with a 34-over chase but just before it looked the umpires were about to make an official announcement about the playing conditions, it started drizzling again.
This forced the game to be called off and moved to the controversial reserve day. The reserve day exists only for this particular fixture in the Super Four, which has led to a backlash of sorts from fans and commentators of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and even India and Pakistan.
The Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha criticised the decision to award the reserve day only for the India-Pakistan match in a press conference, after which the Bangladesh and Sri Lanka cricket boards released statements saying that the tournament organisers had made the call after consulting with them.
The forecast for Monday doesn’t appear promising and rain is most likely to force another washout between the two sides. As per AccuWeather, there are chances of 80 percent rainfall around 5 pm in Colombo. The action, on the other hand, resumes at 3:00 pm local time. Meanwhile if we look at the hourly weather forecast on Weather.com, the chances of rain never reduces below 70 percent after 3 pm. As per the information, the maximum chance of pelting is around 5:30pm in the evening.
Highlights of the match thus far:
– India’s score stands at 147/2 in 24.1 overs
– KL Rahul was on strike at 17 off 28 balls while Virat Kohli was at the other end on 8 off 16; Shadab Khan was bowling his seventh over.
– Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill had put up an opening stand of 121 runs.
