Afghan-Ireland T20 match ruined by rain

Roger Vaughan | October 28, 2022

Afghanistan’s MCG debut has ended in a sodden anti-climax, with Friday’s T20 World Cup game against Ireland abandoned because of persistent rain.

They suffered the same fate in Wednesday night’s game against New Zealand at the same venue.

Afghan coach Jonathan Trott noted that across the city, Marvel Stadium has a roof.

“The frustrating thing as well is there’s a stadium down the road that’s got a roof on it as well so you can play cricket there. So we could have had lots of cricket,” he said.

“But this is the way it is. It’s what makes tournaments unpredictable. It makes tournaments exciting with regard to the matches coming up, must win games. Hopefully we can be part of it in the mix and looking forward to it.”

Trott also had sympathy for the tournament organisers and said Afghanistan had been particularly unlucky.

“The logistics of it all to put on a World Cup is huge. The ICC always put a lot of diligence and effort into their thought process,” he said.

“Who would turn down an opportunity to play at the MCG two matches like we had scheduled?

“(It’s) very frustrating. Obviously after the New Zealand game, you thought no way is it going to happen twice, in a game that’s a must win game for us or a game we wanted to win very much.”

Afghanistan and Ireland picked up a point apiece and the no-results have created even more uncertainty in group one.

Ireland’s shock win over England on Wednesday – their game also ended early because of rain – leaves them second in the group with a win and a loss.

Afghanistan are the only team among the six in group one without a win and they are bottom.

Ireland next play Australia at the Gabba on Monday and Afghanistan will take on Sri Lanka at the same venue the following day.

Irish captain Andrew Balbirnie was philosophical about not playing a game where they were favourites.

“When you haven’t done anything, you can’t really be too disappointed,” he said.

“It’s not that disappointing because we can’t control it. So we’ll just have to move on to Brisbane and hope we get a good performance up there.”