FAISALABAD, April 11: Two short bursts of light rain during the second One-day International between Pakistan and Bangladesh here on Friday once again exposed the poor working abilities of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).
At 6.25pm, the rain ended the Bangladesh innings after 48.2 overs but the drizzle stopped after half an hour and it appeared that the play might resume anytime.
However, the ground staff - with just one rusty super sooper at their disposal — began the irksome task of drying up the huge ground while the spectators gradually lost hopes of things getting back to normal in quick time.
It took them exactly two hours and 30 minutes to restart the proceedings at 9.00pm, with Pakistan reset a target of 158 runs to win in 25 overs under Duck Worth/Lewis method.
Earlier, in the first One-day match at Lahore on Tuesday also, the power failure and later disturbance in one of the six floodlights Pool of the Gaddafi Stadium saw some 48 minutes play lost due to sheer negligence of matters. After power failure by Wapda, the PCB authorities switched on their generators but one of the pools could not work properly till the end of the match. The Bangladesh team, however, continued their batting under poor light, just to complete formality.
The situation did not please the critics and fans at the stadia on both days since a lot better arrangements were expected from the cash-rich PCB in such crisis situations. With high-profile tournaments such as the Asia Cup and the ICC Champions Trophy scheduled for later this year, the PCB really needs to pull up its socks to avoid such mishaps.