Rain fond of Zimbabwe

For the second time in the world T20 2010, Zimbabwe have lost out with the D-L method coming in. This does not mean that Zimbabwe would have won the game in case the D-L method had not been enforced. But, this would instead help the Zimbabwe team when it can take excuse saying that the loss was a result of rains pouring in and with it the D-L method being enforced to its cricket board. With that apart, the sole loser in this case would be New Zealand for having to compromise with a victory margin of only 7 runs.

It is really unfortunate that rain pours in those games involving minnows where in case of abandonment of the game and dividing of points that follows might just turn out to be a misfortune for the stronger like it happened to the West Indies in the 2003 world cup where their league stage match against Bangladesh got washed away due to rain and points were divided. This forced Kenya to move ahead of West Indies in the points table and with it to the super sixes of that world cup. Yesterday, had the match went on smoothly, New Zealand would have won the game by more than 7 runs.

It is just ridiculous that the shortest version of the game gets reduced to one fourth of its size due to rain. In the earlier encounter between sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe were supposed to reach a certain target in only five overs foiling the Sri Lankan effort which took them to bat for nearly 20 overs. Zimbabwe, with ten wickets in hand could have easily reached the target luckily which did not happen. Yesterday, looking at the batting of the Zimbabwe team, the highest individual score happened to be a mere 21 runs from Tatenda Taibu at the top.

There were no sixes in the entire Zimbabwean innings and the last boundary came from the blades of Andy Blignaut who scored 8 runs. This was absolutely not expected from a team that has a history of playing test cricket for decades altogether. The Zimbabwean innings got over in just 15.1 overs which made New Zealand bat for 8 overs. Had the Kiwis batted first, they would have obviously played for 20 overs and the second innings would have lasted for only 3.1 overs. Whatsoever, rain has been found to play as a thirteenth player with extras being the twelfth man.