The ongoing season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has captured the attention of Indian fans, with the tournament hotting up as the race for the playoffs comes to a tense end. There will be no respite from cricketing action after this season either, as the T20 World Cup starts just five days after the final.
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This year, the global tournament will be held in the USA and West Indies, marking the first time the former has hosted a major ICC event. On Tuesday, some important information regarding the rules and regulations emerged.
According to a report from Cricbuzz, there are separate rules in case of a rain delay for the two semi-final matches, in a departure from the norm. Usually in global tournaments, there is a set of rules in place for rain delays which applies to the semi-finals or knockout stages in general.
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At present, there is a reserve day (June 27) allotted for the first semi-final which is set to take place in Trinidad on the evening of June 26. The second semi-final is in Guyana on June 27 at 10:30 AM, but will not have a reserve day. Instead, 250 minutes have been allotted on the same day for the match to be completed on June 27 itself.
Reportedly, the reason for this is to ensure that no team is required to play the second semi-final on a reserve day of June 28, and play the final on the next day (June 29). At present, India will likely play in the second semi-final provided they qualify for that stage.
Quoting a source Cricbuzz wrote,
All four teams have exactly the same opportunity to finish a game. For performance reasons, to ensure teams do not have to ‘play, travel, play’ on consecutive days, the decision was taken to allocate the additional time for the second semi-final immediately post the game because the game is a 10.30 AM start, whilst the first semi-final is an evening start, which means it is not feasible to pay all additional time on the same day. This also ensures that fans in the stadium have the best chance of seeing a result on the day.
The T20 World Cup 2024 will commence on June 2 in the US with the hosts taking on Canada in the curtain-raiser.
Rahul is a content producer for The Sporting News' India edition.
