The International Cricket Council (ICC) and Cricket West Indies (CWI) have reportedly allotted an extra time of over four hours for the second semifinal of the T20 World Cup 2024 in the West Indies and USA. The tournament is set to take place from June 1 with the final being on June 29.
According to a report in Cricbuzz, ICC and CWI have given 250 minutes of additional time for the second semifinal on June 27 in Guyana. Also, there will be no reserve day for this game. This is being done to avoid scheduling clashes.
While the first semifinal is set to begin at 8.30 pm local time on June 26 in Trinidad, the second one will take place a day later and is set to begin at 10.30 AM local time on June 27. In case the rain washes away the second semifinal, the game will not be extended to a reserve day, i.e. June 28. Instead, there will be an additional 250 minutes for the game, which provides that the semifinal can be extended to eight hours.
The first knockout game will have hardly any time if four hours are extended for this game as per local time. The second one is a day game (local time), providing an opportunity to play the game the same day if rain intervenes.
This is to save the travel time and hectic schedule for the team playing in the second semifinal. The team would have needed to play on back-to-back days with travel from one place to the other with such a crucial clash up next for the winner. India will be playing in the second semifinal if they reach there.
"All four teams have exactly the same opportunity to finish a game. For performance reasons, to ensure teams do not have to 'play, travel, play' on consecutive days, the decision was taken to allocate the additional time for the second semi-final immediately post the game because the game is a 10.30 AM start, whilst the first semi-final is an evening start, which means it is not feasible to pay all additional time on the same day. This also ensures that fans in the stadium have the best chance of seeing a result on the day," a source said as quoted by Cricbuzz.
