The ground staff at the Maple Leaf North-West Ground at King City, Ontario, Canada adopted bizarre tactics after rain before the start of the ICC World Cup League 2 match between Namibia and Scotland. Visuals of the same surfaced on social media as the match eventually had to be abandoned.
The start of the match had already been delayed due to seemingly heavy showers and multiple inspections had taken place. A few moments later, the ground staff were seen setting the pitch on fire to seemingly reduce the dampness as the players watched on. With 9:02 pm local booked as the latest time for the match to start, the pitch couldn't be readied by then and the game had to be abandoned.
Watch the below pictures shared by Cricket Scotland on X:
Namibia and Scotland witnessed contrasting results in their previous game
Meanwhile, Namibia and Scotland witnessed contrasting results in their previous game. Namibia had defeated Canada by five wickets, while Scotland lost by four wickets to The Netherlands despite amassing 369 as the Dutch chased it down with four balls to spare in their innings.
Both Namibia and Scotland will face Canada on September 2 and August 30, respectively in a bid to keep themselves going in the tournament. Namibia, who will co-host the 2027 World Cup along with South Africa and Zimbabwe, will be keen to get their momentum going to be part of the tournament. Notably, Namibia are not guaranteed a spot in the World Cup despite being co-host as they are not full ICC members and must go through the standard qualification process.
Their last 50-over World Cup appearance was in 2003. Scotland will be equally eager to be in the mix of things and their most recent 50-over World Cup tournament was in 2015.
