Wet outfield rules out play on second day
India’s chances of retaining the ICC No.1 Test ranking it has recently regained took a hit when play was called off without a ball being bowled on the second day of the fourth Test against West Indies at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain.
Only a truncated first session of play had been possible on Day 1, and though it didn’t rain for large parts of the day on Friday (August 19), the wet outfield meant the ground was unfit to resume proceedings and the umpires decided to call it a day at 2.30 pm, local time.
With only three days remaining in the final Test of the series, India – currently up 2-0 – has limited time now to force the 3-0 margin it needs to hang on to the top rank in Test cricket.
It was a bright morning to start with, but a majority of the outfield was wet from Thursday’s rain. The umpires, Rod Tucker and Nigel Llong, made an inspection at 10.30 am local time, but were not happy with the condition of the outfield. The status quo remained when they made the second inspection an hour later.
There were a couple of more inspections before the umpires bowed to the inevitable. “We've given the ground every chance to dry, unfortunately we've lost this fight today,” said Llong. Tucker added that if the rains stayed away, they were hopeful of play resuming “at some stage” on Saturday’s third day.
On Thursday, having won the toss, West Indies had reached 62 for 2 in 22 overs when rain forced an early lunch. Play was eventually called off just after 2pm.
India had removed Leon Johnson and Dwayne Bravo, and Kraigg Brathwaite and Marlon Samuels were unbeaten on 32 and 4 respectively.