Shouts have been going up for curators and groundsmen in Sri Lanka to be congratulated for keeping the Asia Cup going in spite of tough weather conditions. It never rains but it pours. For two consecutive days in recent weeks, you would have read and heard of Super Four matches being shifted from Colombo, which was mired in the monsoon rain and was apprehending more of it. This was after half of India’s game with Pakistan had been washed out, amid popular gripes about the competition’s uncongenial locales which India had insisted on as the Men in Blue didn’t want to travel to Pakistan. They were the originally designated hosts but were obliged to share the honours with Sri Lanka as the Indian cricket board was more equal than others.
And Pakistan, thriving on India’s discomfiture, had its administrative bigwigs, past and present, rubbing it in, Najam Sethi saying on social media how going to West Asia, which he had suggested when India favoured Sri Lanka, would have forestalled the admittedly farcical situation the Asian Cricket Council was coping with. Zaka Ashraf, his voice heavy with sarcasm, wondered aloud if all the matches would at crunch time be played in Pakistan, which was dry as a bone. And then we got to know that Colombo would not be deserted by the continental competition. Things were said to be looking up, the met office had said, and all the games Sri Lanka’s capital city wanted to savour the glory of staging would be held there all right. The sun was peeping out from behind masses of granite clouds, making officials of all descriptions turn handsprings.
But the scraps of optimistic information were informally whispered for selective leaks, the dispensers of these making sure they would not be asked how long it would be before the seasonal gloom returned to the skies above the island nation. Obviating that, the smart people getting the show up also stopped well short of letting on that the atmospheric silver lining had actually been seized on by television which vetoed a move out of Colombo as it did not look forward to lugging its cumbersome paraphernalia around a country where rain was plentiful and disruptive. Also, the options, Dambulla or Hambantota or Pallekele, had their little problems, hotel accommodation being a major factor to consider.
So, the decision-making, which took on the contours of a high-stake gamble, was left to fringe figures tutored online by executives a long way away with cricket counting the cost. But Jay Shah went on record to say no one had been game for 50-over matches in the heat and humidity of West Asia, which could entail serious risks. Twenty20s are a different matter. The underlying message is simple: if it yields money, it’s okay, never mind how or why short games get shorter as the skies open disastrously up