{"id":212241,"date":"2025-10-20T02:44:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T02:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/212241\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T02:44:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T02:44:15","slug":"womens-cricket-world-cup-ruined-by-predictable-colombo-rain-says-alex-hartley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/212241\/","title":{"rendered":"Women&#8217;s Cricket World Cup &#8216;ruined&#8217; by &#8216;predictable&#8217; Colombo rain, says Alex Hartley"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">You wait four years for a World Cup, but players and fans in Colombo have spent most of this tournament staring at the rain rather than enjoying some much-anticipated cricket.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Five of the nine matches staged in Sri Lanka&#8217;s capital have been affected by rain &#8211; with four ending in no result &#8211; causing former England spinner Alex Hartley to say the conditions had &#8220;ruined&#8221; the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">October is monsoon season on the island, with 300-370mm of rain anticipated in the month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I don&#8217;t really know what anybody was expecting to be completely honest. You have a tournament in Sri Lanka during monsoon season, it pretty much rains at the same time every single day,&#8221; Hartley, who won the tournament in 2017, told BBC Radio 5 Live.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s ruined this World Cup &#8211; it&#8217;s been a real shame.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">All bar two of Sri Lanka&#8217;s group games are being staged at the R. Premadasa Stadium, as are all of Pakistan&#8217;s matches <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/cricket\/articles\/cp8d54q9jleo\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">because of the ongoing political tensions<\/a> with India, who are hosting the majority of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fatima Sana&#8217;s side sit bottom of the tournament standings and are facing elimination having seen their past two games washed out, including one against England where they looked <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/cricket\/articles\/ce8gd6llx2go\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">well placed to win.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;You don&#8217;t want to come into a 50-over World Cup going &#8216;oh, well let&#8217;s hope we get a T20 tonight if it rains a little bit&#8217;. It&#8217;s been a little bit too predictable and really disappointing,&#8221; added Hartley.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I toured Sri Lanka 10 years ago in October and every one of our training sessions got rained out every single afternoon. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The games in Sri Lanka could, and should have, started earlier &#8211; that&#8217;s the only way you could have got the games unaffected.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">All matches are being played as day-nighters, with a 10:30 BST start and 15:00 local. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">New Zealand have also seen their past two games in Colombo rained off, and the T20 World champions currently sit out the qualification places for the knockout stages.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s extremely frustrating, let&#8217;s be honest. You wait four years for a World Cup and to have suffer through the rain,&#8221; said New Zealand captain Sophie Devine, who at 35 is likely to be playing in her last 50-over World Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I hope in future editions, they think of playing earlier in the day. We have seen the rain comes in the evening so play at 10 or 11. For the game, to be scuppered by rain is a real shame for me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">BBC Sport has approached the International Cricket Council (ICC) for comment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">England&#8217;s game against Pakistan in Colombo saw them slip to 133-9, with the game called off during their opponents&#8217; chase.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Nonetheless, England coach Charlotte Edwards has also been critical of the situation in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;You want to play as much cricket as you possibly can. I don&#8217;t know if things could have been changed that the games start earlier because of the monsoon season. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I just hope that the teams that are playing there get some cricket this week, because you want to be playing games in the tournaments like this and it&#8217;s very frustrating that they&#8217;re not at the moment.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If Pakistan were to qualify for the knockout stages then their matches would be held in Colombo, but given they are unlikely to qualify there are likely to be just two further matches staged there &#8211; between Pakistan and South Africa on Tuesday and Sri Lanka and Pakistan on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The weather for both days? <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/weather\/1248991\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rain.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You wait four years for a World Cup, but players and fans in Colombo have spent most of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-212241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}