The T20 World Cup semi-finals are a stitch-up to favour India

England face being knocked out of the T20 World Cup without a ball being bowled in their semi-final against India if forecasts for Thursday’s showdown in Guyana prove correct.

The logistical chaos surrounding the semi-finals has already left the International Cricket Council, organisers of the tournament, open to accusations that the sporting integrity of the whole event has been brought into question.

Those accusations will only get louder if the nightmare scenario for the defending champions comes to pass this week.

That’s because there is only a reserve day scheduled in case of bad weather for first semi-final between South Africa and Afghanistan in Trinidad on Wednesday. For England’s match the following day, a no result would see India go through because they qualified top of their Super Eight group.

That would be fair under normal circumstances given England were beaten into second place in their half of the draw by South Africa.

Yet the fact there are different playing conditions for each semi-final is nonsensical.

Don Topley, the former Essex bowler and father of England seamer Reece, posted on X, formerly Twitter: “People only now just starting to realise……How can you have completely different playing conditions for the two @cricketworldcup Semi Finals: Trinidad and Guyana?”

The decision to guarantee India the Guyana semi-final weeks in advance because it was allocated the 10.30am local start time – evening prime-time for TV audiences on the sub-continent – has also drawn much ire and added to the organisational difficulties.

It meant England, the first team to qualify for the last four after thrashing the USA by 10 wickets in Barbados on Sunday, were left in limbo for 24 hours not knowing where they were travelling too until India’s final Super Eight match against Australia on Monday was completed.

Rohit Sharma’s squad were given preferential treatment because the ICC were under pressure to maximise the TV audience for their semi-final given their Indian broadcast deal with Disney Star is worth more than £1billion per year. The pressure exerted on the ICC by the Board of Control for Cricket in India can be crushing.

But why both semi-finals were not scheduled for that 10.30am slot – the Trinidad match starts at 8.30pm in the Caribbean – is not clear.

Letting India pick their own venue also allowed them to plan in advance for conditions – a big advantage. They also arrived into Guyana a day earlier than England, who only landed 48 hours before the match.

Awarding Guyana a knockout match was always high risk given it is a country notorious for rain – with 17 of the 31 Tests ever played there ending in a draw. This is also the start of the wet season in the region.

Guyana, sharing a border with Suriname to the east and Venezuela to the west on mainland South America, typically has 23 days of rain in June. Average rainfall for the month is 348 millimetres. By comparison, June in London typically sees 60mm of rain. In Manchester, it is 96mm.

Had this semi-final been staged in the Amazon Rainforest it would only have had a marginally worse chance of being washed out given it typically sees 349mm of rainfall in June.

Unsurprisingly there is an 88 per cent chance of heavy rain in Georgetown, Guyana’s capital, on Thursday.

Choosing a semi-final venue with limited hotel capacity and flight options from other Caribbean islands is also a huge issue.

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No UK-based media organisations will be at the semi-final, with even the BBC, radio rights holders for the tournament, being forced to cover the match off the TV from Barbados.

The ICC did manage to arrange seats on England’s charter flight to Guyana on Tuesday for travelling media.

However, the lack of hotel rooms in Georgetown made the trip impossible despite the best efforts of those ICC staff on the ground to make it happen.

Staying outside of the main international hotels was also not an option given the security issues in Georgetown, with the Foreign Office warning: “There are frequent armed robberies, hold-ups, carjackings and other violent crimes, often involving two or more attackers. Passers-by can get caught up in gunfire even if they are not targets because police are armed and shoot back.”

The US Department of State adds of Georgetown that robberies and break-ins, especially at hotels, are “rife”.

For the small number of travelling England fans in the Caribbean, getting to Guyana was nigh on impossible, with those i spoke to in Barbados this week not even attempting to make the journey.

Richard Yule, a director at International Cricket Tours, told i: “The decision was made not to offer group packages. The late announcement of the scheduled match dates and locations was a factor in our decision.

“In general airlift to Guyana is extremely limited as is good-standard hotel accommodation, most of which had already been blocked by the ICC for the match officials and corporate sponsors. There was no certainty on which location England would play should they qualify, unlike Indian fans who were assured Guyana would be their venue for the semi-final.”

Arranging an international tournament is a complex task and not all of this should be blamed on the ICC. They are having to not only satisfy India, the sport’s economic powerhouse, but also multiple countries in the Caribbean who were all competing for the biggest matches. Much of this is political and out of their hands.

Yet the way things have panned out this week has been embarrassing for the sport.