Cricket’s integrity has been TRASHED as India obtain serving to hand for his or her T20 World Cup semi-final showdown with England, writes LAWRENCE BOOTH

As England left Bridgetown for Georgetown on a 9am constitution flight forward of Thursday’s World Cup semi-final in opposition to India, they did so troubled by a nagging thought: they might but be flying dwelling to the UK with out bowling one other ball.

Guyana, positioned within the north-east nook of the South American mainland close to the Amazon jungle, is deep into its moist season, with the month of June sometimes experiencing 23 days of heavy rain.

But, extremely, whereas the primary of the semi-finals, between Afghanistan and South Africa in Trinidad, has a reserve day, the second, between England and India in Guyana, doesn’t.

Even the allowance of an additional 250 minutes for the Guyana recreation in case the climate intervenes might not be sufficient to forestall a washout. And since they completed greater of their Tremendous Eight group than England, India would then advance on to Saturday’s ultimate in Barbados.

As with a lot else in cricket, the rationale for this discrepancy boils all the way down to the necessity to maximise the TV viewers in South Asia. India have been billeted for the Guyana semi-final ever for the reason that World Cup schedule was drawn up – a pre-arrangement not afforded every other workforce within the competitors.

Guyana sometimes has 23 days of laborious rain in June, and the climate forecast is bleak for Thursday’s semi-final

Regardless of there being a reserve day for the opposite semi-final, there may be not one for England’s match, and Rohit Sharma’s India will progress straight by to the ultimate if it is a washout

The Trinidad recreation begins at 8.30pm native time, which is an ungodly 6am in India. The Guyana recreation, however, begins at 10am in South America – excellent for India’s night viewers.

And since the ultimate begins solely 48 hours later, a reserve day in Georgetown was out of the query. The only resolution would have been to stage the ultimate on Sunday, permitting an additional day, and making certain uniformity throughout the 2 semi-finals.

If India undergo after a washout, it gained’t be the fault of their cricketers. Had they, not England, completed second of their Tremendous Eight group, then they, not England, would have been the victims of the climate. Everybody has recognized of this association for months.

However the extent to which one of many recreation’s showpiece occasions has needed to kowtow to broadcasting’s backside line sums up cricket’s plight: it’s so over-reliant on a single mass market that issues of organisational integrity come a distant second.

This could come as a shock to nobody who has watched worldwide cricket’s course of journey lately. Not that anybody needs to do something about it.

When Mail Sport revealed in November that the BCCI had overruled the ICC’s impartial pitch advisor, Andy Atkinson, and adjusted the pitch forward of India’s 50-over World Cup semi-final in opposition to New Zealand in Mumbai, our story was met with the standard mixture of administrative obfuscation and on-line abuse.

But it mirrored the fact of world cricket: due to their large monetary pulling energy, India anticipated to get away with the subterfuge. And as soon as the story got here out, they merely anticipated everybody else to simply accept it.

And so right here we’re once more, getting ready for hopelessly lopsided logistics on the semi-final stage of a World Cup. Cricket actually should do higher – but it surely gained’t.