Oval turns into a swimming pool

INSTEAD of cricket glorious cricket at the Queen’s Park Oval yesterday, there was water for all. The second match of the Cable & Wireless one-day international series between West Indies and England was washed out by a downpour which left the Oval outfield resembling a lake rather than a cricket ground. At 11.49 am, the heavens opened up and sent the players scurrying off the field for the last time in the match. West Indies  won the toss and elected to bat and were 57 runs for two wickets  after 16 overs. Both opening batsmen Shivnarine Chanderpaul (three) and Chris Gayle (20) were back in the pavilion. Ramnaresh Sarwan and Ricardo Powell were the not out batsmen.

The rain started slowly but soon started to pelt down, bucket-a-drop on an already saturated Oval outfield. Umpires Billy Doctrove and Darryl Hair had no choice but to call off play 45 minutes after the deluge. While hopelessly waiting for the rain to end, some bored fans decided to take over the show and started scaling the fence and diving into the puddles of water. This stirred major comedy, as two guys had an English visitor flat on his back as though administering treatment for drowning. Prognosis for play today is that it would get underway late, since the outfield will need sufficient time to dry out. Play was originally scheduled to get underway at 9.35am today.

Scoreboard
WEST INDIES vs ENGLAND
West Indies inns:
C Gayle c Collingwood b Anderson 20
S Chanderpaul c Read b Harmison 3
R Powell not out 8
R Sarwan not out 11
EXTRAS (LB 6, W9) 15
Total for two wickets (16 overs) 57
DID NOT BAT: B Lara, D Smith, R Jacobs, D Bravo, R Rampaul, C Collymore, M Dillon.
Fall of wickets: 28; 34.
BOWLING: Gough 5-0-20-0 (W4); Harmison 7-1-16-1 (W4); Anderson 3-0-13-1 (W1); Flintoff 1-0-2-0.
ENGLAND:  M Trescothick, M Vaughan, A Strauss, A Flintoff, P Collingwood, I Blackwell, R Clarke, C Read, D Gough, S Harmison, J Anderson.
England lead best-of-seven series 1-0.