England, Sri Lanka split points after washout

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The ICC Women’s World Cup holders England shared points with Sri Lanka after heavy and continuous rain washed out their opening match of the ICC Women’s World T20 2018.

The Group A match was the only one due to be played on Saturday, and the first one hosted by the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium in Gros Islet, St Lucia, a day after the tournament got off to an exciting start at Guyana National Stadium in Georgetown.

Both teams received one point each. England, ranked third in the MRF Tyres ICC T20I Team Rankings were left frustrated since they were seen as the favourites for the match against eighth-ranked Sri Lanka.

The Windies lead Group A with two points after their win against Bangladesh on the opening day of the tournament on Friday while South Africa’s first fixture is on Monday against Sri Lanka, which will follow the match between England and Bangladesh.

In Group B, India and Australia have notched their first wins and are due to play their second matches on Sunday against Pakistan and Ireland, respectively.

England captain Heather Knight: “Obviously today is very frustrating. It's the wettest outfield I think I've ever seen in my career, and I was chatting to Danni Hazell back there, and we were saying she's played for 10 years and she's only ever missed -I think this will be her second full day that's been wiped out. So yeah, we're hopeful we can get some cricket in. The forecast obviously isn't ideal.

“I think we'll get some cricket in, whether it's a five-over smash, whatever it might be, we're going to have to be ready. There's obviously nothing we can do about the weather above, we're just going to have to deal with it when it comes.

“I think it's frustrating, but I don't think it's too much of a setback. It is what it is. We'll obviously split the points with Sri Lanka and we're hopeful we can get a game with Bangladesh on Monday. We're obviously desperate to get our tournament going, but today it's obviously not to be. We've just got to be ready when it comes.

“Every game in this tournament is a must-win, and if it happens that we're obviously going into those final games, I think we'll just be glad to get out there and play some cricket, and the fact that we must win is just by the bye. But it is what it is. It's raining, and unfortunately we're fair-weather cricketers and it's a fair-weather sport, so we can't get out there.”

**Sri Lanka skipper Chamari Athapaththu: “**The last couple of months we trained hard in Sri Lanka, but unfortunately the bad thing is we've come here but we can't play. Our practice (too) is not good because of the weather. We didn't have nets or indoor nets, so we didn't train much. But our preparation is really good before the warm-ups, so we trust our potential and our talent.”

“We have three matches next week. Hopefully we can win one or two matches, and we can go to the semifinals.

“Windies are the defending champions, they are playing good cricket. Last night they bounced back after they lost a few wickets early. Stafanie is playing really well, and they are fighting hard, so I know they are a really good team. It's not an easy team, so we'll try our best and trust ourselves and play positive, and let's see what we can do.”

Sunday’s fixtures:

India v Pakistan, Georgetown, Guyana (Group B)
Australia v Ireland, Georgetown, Guyana (Group B)

Complete fixtures and timings can be found here