T20 World Cup: Relentless rain washes out England-Australia clash, makes path to semi-finals more difficult | Cricket News

MELBOURNE: The decisive T20 World Cup clash between old rivals Australia and England was called off without a ball being bowled on Friday due to erratic rain, making the race to the semi-finals more difficult for the two top teams.
After the Afghanistan-Ireland match was washed out at the MCG in the afternoon, it was a double whammy for the crowd as the weather again played spoilsport.
Points Table
Only two teams each from the two groups qualify for the semi-finals. After two rained out matches on Friday, England found themselves in second place after sharing a point with Australia.
England’s title favorites suffered a shock loss to Ireland in the Super 12s.
Australia also have three points from as many matches after losing their first tournament against New Zealand. They are fourth in the group with the worst run rate among four teams tied at three points. New Zealand leads the group and Ireland is second.

Rain affected most of the matches at the MCG except for the Indo-Pak clash played on Sunday.
“It’s the wettest I’ve ever seen in this stadium. The run-up was a real issue and around the infield it was very wet. It’s more about player safety,” Australian captain Aaron Finch said.
“We saw one of the Zimbabweans go down the other day. If you try to run there it’s going to be a real issue. Everyone was ready to play, there was a big turnout, disappointing not to turn up not.
“The amount of rain Melbourne had was unbelievable.”
When asked about Matthew Wade, who was down with COVID-19, he added: “”He was going to play tonight. He had some symptoms yesterday, but he was good to go.”
England captain Jos Buttler also expressed disappointment after the second non-performance of the day.
“It was supposed to be a massive occasion, full house here against Australia, biggest game of your career, very disappointed not to be able to play tonight. But full focus on our next game and keep our tournament alive. We played good cricket leading up to the tournament.
“Really disappointing the other night especially when we had most things in our favour. We don’t become a bad team overnight. We are full of match winners. Looking forward to the rest of the tournament,” said Buttler in reference to the loss for Ireland.