India qualified for the T20 World Cup final at England's expense on account of winning their group after rain prevented any play in the first semi-final
Heather Knight admitted she “wouldn’t wish it on anyone” to be dumped out of the T20 World Cup in the manner that her England side were on Thursday.
After heavy and persistent rain prevented any chance of play at the SCG, it was India who progressed through to Sunday’s final courtesy of Harmanpreet Kaur’s team winning their group, while England came second to South Africa.
Reserve days are not available as part of the competition – despite there being 76 hours between the moment England’s semi-final was abandoned and the final getting underway.
It meant that, with a 10-over game impossible to fit into the time allocated ahead of the second semi-final between Australia and South Africa, England’s tournament was over.
“You hope now there's going to be a rule change moving forward,” Knight said. “Hopefully it changes. But obviously for us we're just frustrated it's come to this.
“Obviously it's gutting. You put in a lot of hard work. You want to have the chance to showcase your skills and show that you can perform on the biggest stage and obviously in knock-out games, in World Cups; there's no bigger stage than that.
“Unfortunately, it is what it is. We'll have to rue that first game and move on. It's going to be bitter pill to swallow for a few of us a while.”
Heather Knight had a fine tournament on a personal level
England’s six-wicket defeat against South Africa in their first game of the tournament would go on to cost them, as struggles with the bat meant that Knight’s side was left to defend just 123 at the WACA.
For a short period, it looked as though England had put themselves in a position to claim an unlikely win, only for Chloe Tryon and Mignon du Preez to clinch an ultimately vital win for the Proteas.
Knight added her praise for competition as a whole, describing it as “brilliant”.
“I think the tournament has been outstanding, obviously the way it's been publicised, the amount of press it's got, the amount of young girls and boys who have sort of seen cricket.
“For girls it's an equal billing to the boys which has been outstanding. Obviously today is disappointing but it won't take too much shine off where the sport has gone. And you see if the money's put into publicising it and putting it out there, that people do want to come watch it.”
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Posted by David Rimmer on 05/03/2020 at 18:21
Heather Knight has demonstrated considerable maturity and it will be hard to come back from that _ hopefully people will give them some slack. However, the rules do not show cricket for this competition in a good light. To put it bluntly, it is a farce and makes a complete mockery. There is no flexibility _ what would happen if a team in a football semi-football was knocked out because of unfit conditions for a last four game and an inferior group stage record to their scheduled opponents? There would be all hell to pay. I can hear people saying the rules are the rules but as is often the case with the law, in this case they are an ass. I write this as the news has come through of the first Covid-19 virus death in this country so it puts what has happened in Australia into perspective.
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