Devine frustrated with consecutive Colombo washouts and suggested starting games early when the forecast is for rain.
‘It’s extremely frustrating’ – Captain Sophie Devine on New Zealand’s back-to-back washouts in Colombo.
After their second washout in as many games in Colombo, Sophie Devine, the captain of New Zealand, expressed her “extreme frustration” and requested improved match organisation at ICC events.
“You wait four years for a World Cup and to have rain play such a massive part in it is disappointing,” she said at the presentation. “I hope that in future editions they think about playing the games earlier in the day. We’ve obviously seen here that the rain usually comes in the afternoon, so [there is an] opportunity to potentially play these games at 10-11am in the morning and try and get a game in. Because that’s what all these teams want, is to be able to play cricket. You’ve waited for so long and you want to test yourself against the best and to be scuppered by rain, it’s a real shame for me.”
Four of the nine games played in Colombo thus far, including three of the previous four, have been rained out. All of the World Cup’s games, with the exception of one, are set to begin at 3 p.m. local time. New Zealand believed they were “in a decent position” after limiting Pakistan to 80 for 5 on Saturday, even if their washout against Pakistan kept them sixth in the points rankings. Rain eventually forced the points to be split.
“I thought we had a little bit of hope seeing the South Africa game [against Sri Lanka] the other night, where they were off for five hours, and managed to squeak a game in,” Devine said. “Look, we thought we were in a decent position, we just needed the rain to hold off and unfortunately it didn’t happen for us today.”
Since the race for the semi-finals heats up, New Zealand would have fancied their chances against Pakistan, who have yet to win the event, since they have two must-win games coming up: England (Visakhapatnam) and India (Navi Mumbai).
“Oh, look, to be honest, it’s pretty flat,” Devine said of the mood in the dressing room. “I mean, we wanted to play today, we were really up and about for today’s match. We just want to be playing cricket, so for us now, we know that the situation’s extremely clear. We just need to win both games, starting with India in Mumbai – so, a real big challenge for us – but we’re really excited about it. I know that the girls don’t need to be pumped up anymore to be able to take them on so, we’ll head back to India tomorrow and look forward to those challenges.”