ICC World Cup 2019 | It now makes for an exciting finish, says Steve Elworthy

Midway through the round-robin first stage of the 2019 World Cup, several eyebrows were raised at the organization of the tournament. Several matches were forcibly abandoned due to rain. As far as results were concerned, four teams seemed to be running away with it - namely India, New Zealand, Australia, and England. But, after Bangladesh chased down 321 inside 42 overs against Windies, the tides have changed slowly. Naturally, the tournament director, Elworthy, is a happy man, with how the tournament has progressed.

“I think it’s been absolutely fantastic. At the beginning of the tournament, we had a few issues with the rain. The weather wasn’t great, which we can’t do a lot about. But I think it now makes for an exciting finish. At one point in the beginning, four teams looked like running away with it, but that’s changed now. It’s certainly opened up,” Steve told TOI in an exclusive interview. 

Several critics had noted that none of the grounds were being covered despite the heavy rains that forced some key matches to be abandoned. 

“It’s quite unique I suppose to the UK. They’ve got a different view on it. They’ve spent millions of pounds on the drainage systems on all of these grounds. So, they’ve had a fantastic system in place. but when you see the rainfall, and the historic amount of water that fell in June and July…it was unprecedented. In hindsight, that (covering the grounds) would’ve been good,” Steve admitted.

Struggling through all that to make for an exciting tournament, the organizers had another troubling issue to deal with during the Pakistan-Afghanistan clash in Leeds. An aircraft flew over the stadium with a banner that held a political statement (“Free Balochistan”). Steve was quick to note that the ICC strongly condemns such incidents.

“Yes, there were a couple of incidents out there. We knew it was going to be an intense game. We shipped in an extra 60 stewards for that. But there were a small group of people who clearly went there with the intent of causing trouble. Our position on this is that we’ll do everything we can working with the West Yorkshire police, who’re investigating it. There’s no place for that in cricket. And we’ll make sure that it doesn’t happen again,” Steve concluded.