England v Pakistan: third men’s T20 cricket international abandoned – as it happened | Cricket

The match has been abandoned

There will be a viewing at 8:10 p.m, obviously. The Five5 game is underway!

We remind you that the final time is 21:16. The radar seems to be clear from now until then, although it was clear from 19:00 and then continued to rain.

No news is bad news

It’s still raining. The drainage is good and there’s still about 90 minutes to play so it’s not a lost cause yet.

“Ah, Jofra Archer was in it 2019 lineuptoo,” says Bill Hargreaves. “If only it were that simple.”

Jofra is 29 years old. When the hell did this happen?

It’s still raining, even though the radar suggests it is about to stop. Yes, yes, I know.

It’s a cracked place

And here is the scorecard in question.

Final time to play Five5 is 9:15pmand it wasn’t the pesky auto-refresh that I’d include in a line about why you should keep pressing F5 until then.

Some knowledge is greater than others

The rain is expected to clear around 7 p.m, after which the radar appears clear for at least an hour. I’m sure Andrew Miller will be able to find a radar that has the apocalypse penciled in for 20:01, but for now let’s focus on the positive.

What’s on average?

“I enjoyed reading the article on World Cup squads: it got me thinking about the relative merits of averages in T20 Internationals,” writes Tom Van der Gucht. “When I looked the other day, I noticed this six of the top 10 averages are from associated nations. Then I began to ponder whether this was fair or not.

“If you play for a lower-level national team, you probably won’t be as good a player from one of the Test nations because of the facilities and opportunities available in your formative years, but the equalization would be that your lack of class is canceled out by a similar level of their opponent in a qualifying tournament, meaning that a high average is perhaps fair in the circumstances? Or in fact, if you average 40 against PNG, you are likely to average less against India or even Surrey in the Blast… This means that a T20 average against lower standard teams is not a fair average, when taken universally against all international nations .

“I guess the proof will be in the pudding after England were dumped out of the tournament after losing to Namibia, Oman and Scotland…”

Some of the averages are certainly not representative, but I think it is a price worth paying for giving full international status to T20 matches involving associate nations. The benefits of this far outweigh the discomfort experienced by state outsiders like myself.

On that note, Athers and Nasser’s episode of the Associated Nations T20 World Cup podcast was a real joy, thanks mainly to the knowledge and passion of their guest, Andrew Leonard. Listen to it. It will make you smile or your money back.

Interview with Usman Khawaja

If you want to hear three adults talk about the richest Ashes series since 2005, without regard for clickbait or likes or any of that life-denying nonsense, this podcast is definitely recommended.

County Cricket

In other views, here’s the rated Gary Naylor in the weather-affected but still fascinating round of County Championship meetings

I still have nightmares from time to time for Andrew Miller’s tweets during the Old Trafford Test last summer, mainly because they all contained radar maps of the rainfall that dashed any remaining hope of England winning the Ashes.

Alas, the gloomy twitter is back, although at least it can tell the difference between an English and a Welsh muzzle.

“I guess you’ve already received 3125645 angry emails from Llanelli about this,”, writes Andrew Cosgrove, “but if Rob Key has no influence over the weather in England, I imagine he’s no better off with the weather in Wales either.”

Ah, yes, I understand. Will you at least accept that it takes a rare talent to unwittingly insult an entire country within two paragraphs of an introduction to a game nobody cares about and might not take place anyway due to the weather in Scotland?

Throwing slowed down

T20 World Cup team by team guide

If you’re at dinner this week and need to fill an awkward silence or change the subject, there are plenty of nuggets and insights here.

“The thing is, Maximilian, that while David Wiese, a shot on loan in the franchise chain, gets most of the attention when he plays Namibia, one has to keep an eye on the returning Ruben Trumpelmann, a muscular left-arm real quick who can cope with the best. The highest-ranked contributor – they are 12th – Scotland went unbeaten in European qualifying last summer, pipping Ireland to top spot thanks to an eight-goal win over them in the final match.”

Preamble