Asia Cup: Teams pray for full games as weather mars World Cup ‘dress rehearsal’

As early as in October last year, Jay Shah, the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), announced that India wouldn’t travel to Pakistan, the hosts, for the 2023 Asia Cup. After the BCCI’s AGM, when Shah spoke to the media, he donned the hat of the president of the Asian Cricket Council. “The Asia Cup 2023 will be held at a neutral venue,” Shah had said then. “I am saying this as ACC president. We (India) can’t go there (to Pakistan), they can’t come here. In the past also, Asia Cup has been played at a neutral venue.”

Of rivals and inclement weather

The intangible battlelines, if that’s how it can be construed, were drawn then and there. The Pakistan Cricket Board wasn’t amused, threatening as a counter-measure to pull out of the 50-over World Cup, scheduled to start in India on October 5. It was an empty threat, everyone knew; the Asia Cup would devolve into a hybrid model for the first time, with Pakistan sharing staging responsibilities with Sri Lanka.

Of the 13 matches in the tournament, four were allocated to Pakistan, with the remaining nine, including the final, to be held in Sri Lanka. Pakistan would only play two matches in their country; it wasn’t ideal from their point of view but that’s how it would be once India dug their heels in.

The choice of Sri Lanka as one of the venues at this time of the year didn’t appear the most prudent. This is the acknowledged monsoon season in this part of the world, with rains ranging from persistent to torrential. The PCB had suggested holding the tournament in its entirety in the UAE, but that didn’t cut any ice with the September heat touted as the primary reason. The PCB contended that the previous Asia Cup had been held at almost the same time in the Emirates in 2022; the counter was that that was a T20 tournament, and making players play 50-over games in extreme heat just weeks prior to the start of the World Cup was extreme and unnecessary.

Alternate venues and challenges

This Asia Cup is more than halfway done in terms of matches – seven of the 13 games have been played out, two of them seriously hit by the weather. The marquee India-Pakistan contest in Pallekele on Saturday lasted just half the duration, Pakistan’s chase of India’s 266 stymied by continuous rain. Two days later, a 117-minute stoppage owing to rain reduced India’s chase of Nepal’s 230 to 23 overs and 145 runs, also at the same venue. By then, Colombo, which was to stage the remaining six games in Sri Lanka, was experiencing torrential downpours on a daily basis, enough to trigger speculation that the tournament would move out of the national capital.

Then began numerous rounds of fact-finding and behind-the-scenes action. At no stage was there any official comment on the possibility of the matches being shifted, though no one was in any doubt that Dambulla, Pallekele and Hambantota were being touted as alternative options. Each came with its own set of challenges; Dambulla, up north in the so-called ‘dry zone’, wasn’t in ideal shape to host so many games in such a short span of time, while Pallekele was in the middle of sharp rains as evidenced by the shortened games. Hambantota, in the south, offered numerous logistical challenges, not least accommodation. The nearest big hotels are nearly 45 minutes away from the ground, and it wouldn’t be easy to procure rooms for four teams with their inflated support staff, match officials, the huge crew of the host broadcaster and the large posse of travelling mediapersons from different Asian countries.

Colombo’s relative rain-free status over the last couple of days came as a huge relief to the organisers, allowing them to stick to the original schedule. Once confirmation came through on Tuesday evening that the R Premadasa Stadium would be the stage on which the tournament would reach its logical conclusion, news also filtered through that it was raining in Hambantota. Oh, the irony.

Weather puts a dampener on World Cup ‘dress rehearsal’

For the last week, cricket has been relegated to the background with grandstanding, statements and counter-statements occupying the centrestage. This was to have been the dress rehearsal for the five Asian teams who will vie for the World Cup, but so far, it has hardly served that purpose. Hopefully, now that the dust has settled, cricket will remain the primary focus but for that, the elements must ensure they do not play spoilsport.

“It's a real shame the weather has been a bit of a spoiler,” Sidath Wettimuny, Sri Lanka’s first Test centurion, told The Federal. “There is no doubt this tournament would have been good practice for the World Cup, especially because it's being played in India; you'll be playing on pitches which are similar, so you can thrash out those little issues you have and get your team composition or squad composition better, hopefully. This is a great opportunity for these countries to do their homework leading up to the World Cup, but I just hope the weather stays better.”

Wettimuny’s remarks echo the sentiments of cricket-lovers in the continent. As it is, the Asia Cup needs a desperate infusion of fresh breath. A tepid gathering for the Sri Lanka-Bangladesh encounter in Pallekele last week was hugely disappointing, but also perhaps inevitable because the tickets were priced exorbitantly highly. At Sri Lanka Cricket’s request, the PCB agreed the slash the grass-bank rates for the India-Pakistan encounter for which the ground was still only a little more than half-full, while on Wednesday in Pakistan, the Super Four game between the host nation and Bangladesh was halted for a considerable time owing to a floodlight failure. Furthermore, the influx of sports tourism that Sri Lanka had anticipated hasn’t materialised.

The players have tried to insulate themselves from the goings-on around them; more than anyone else, they will be praying for full games for obvious reasons. They understand that cricket in this part of the world can never be independent of politics, especially with India and Pakistan on opposing ends of the spectrum. They also realise that both this and the weather are out of their control. As they apply the finishing touches to their preparation for next month’s big bash, they seek a little benevolence from the weather gods. That’s the least they, and the troubled Asia Cup, deserve.