Rain has been playing a spoilsport throughout the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 and now the India-West Indies clash of the league stage of the tournament, slated to take place on June 27 at the Old Trafford stadium in Manchester may get hampered by showers also.
It has been drizzling in Manchester from Sunday evening continuously and the weather worsened on Tuesday. It rained all day without a break on Tuesday which forced the Indian team to practice indoors and miss another round of outdoor training ahead of the clash.
The local met office issued a warning before, forecasting heavy rains and flooding on Tuesday. But much to the joy of the Indian and West Indian fans the weather forecast on match day, till now, looks good. According to the met office forecast, the next two days will be better and there will be no rain.
India are currently placed third on the league table of the tournament with four wins out of five fixtures. Their match against New Zealand was washed out due to rain. On the other hand, West Indies are placed eight on the table and are out of the tournament. They have won only one match and lost four out of six fixtures whereas one of their matches was also washed out due to rain.
The Men in Blue, considering the form they are having in the competition, definitely have an upper hand over the Caribbean side but they almost faced a major setback in their previous match against Afghanistan. India's batting performance in the previous match was poor, especially players like MS Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav wasted a lot of deliveries towards the end of the innings. These could have resulted in a shocking defeat at the hands of the minnows. West Indies will be looking forward to giving some consolation to the people of their region as they are already out of the running and have nothing to lose. The Virat Kohli led side will look forward to win the match and seal the semi-final birth on Thursday itself.
