Sports Desk Muscat
The chairman of Oman’s cricket board told Reuters he would have had to wave “Goodbye” to the Twenty20 World Cup had a deadly storm that ripped through the Gulf state on Sunday taken a slightly different path.
Eleven people were killed as heavy winds and rain swept through the country after tropical storm Shaheen made landfall in Oman.
The Gulf state will host six Group B matches at Al Amerat near Muscat, including three involving their own team, and Oman Cricket Chairman Pankaj Khimji said they were “very fortunate” to have missed the worst of the storm.
“We were so close to being virtually wiped out,” he told Reuters. “We had the cyclone only a few nautical miles north. It made the landfall there and it’s devastated that whole region and flooded the whole plain over there.
“Had this had happened over here in this area, I’d have said ‘Goodbye’ to the World Cup.” While a handful of hospitality tents bore the brunt of the storm, the organisers were pleased with the greener look of the outfield following the intense rain.
