England and Australia awoke on Friday morning in the knowledge that if they took the field one of them would almost certainly see their T20 World Cup hopes evaporate before the day was out, but in the end it was the evaporation of water that became the key issue. Scheduled to begin at 7pm the match was eventually abandoned a little under two hours later, allowing both sides to continue dreaming of the semi-finals for a few more days at least.
After the best part of four days’ constant rainfall it always felt like an occasion when the teams would be less likely to have to deal with losses than galoshes. But when the covers were peeled off the pitch at about 7pm and the groundskeepers embarked on a frenzied half-hour of soaking and mopping there was the prospect of cricket, rather than incessant drizzle, in the air. Two pitch inspections came and went before, a few minutes before a scheduled third and with the ground still dangerously soft, the rain returned and all hope ended.
