India captain Shreyas Iyer has stated that persistent weather disruptions and restricted training will not be used as an excuse by his team, adding that mental readiness and on-field action remain their sole focus ahead of the Asian Games quarter-final against Afghanistan, to be played at the Korogi Sports Park on Monday.
The threat of a washout is significant, with the venue having already seen its last two scheduled games being abandoned on Friday. “So a decent warm up or a little knocking practice we got today and tomorrow we will try to adapt to the wicket. We will see how the weather is here tomorrow, but that is secondary. The primary importance is to come and play the match,” Shreyas told reporters in a press conference on Sunday. “See, today when we woke up, we thought that we would be getting a little bit of practice sessions and knew that we would be playing on turf.
Heavy rain is forecast in Nisshin when India open their men’s T20 event campaign, which has raised the possibility of the game being washed out. Should adverse weather intervene, India will advance to the semi-finals owing to their higher ICC T20I ranking. Iyer insisted that the squad will not let weather uncertainties dictate their approach or preparation. But as soon as we arrived, the rain started again. Urging his teammates to maintain a positive mindset despite the challenging forecast, Iyer called on his squad to embrace the tour dynamics fully. “At the same time, the conditions are challenging. The more you embrace it, the more you basically see to it that you are pretty much optimising the best opportunities that you’re getting.
The situation mirrors the 2023 Asian Games final between India and Afghanistan, which was also called off due to persistent rain, resulting in India securing the gold medal by virtue of their superior ranking.
