Miller highlights World Cup schedule woes after another airport delay before final

Barely an hour after David Miller outlined how chaotic some of South Africa’s travel arrangements had been during the World Cup, he and the rest of the Proteas team were stuck at the airport in Trinidad for six hours on Thursday before their departure for the World Cup final. 

The delay, no fault of the ICC, occurred because the landing gear of a light aircraft failed to deploy upon its approach to Grantley Adams International Airport in Bridgetown, Barbados.

The Proteas face India in the T20 World Cup final at Kensington Oval on Saturday, from 4.30pm (SA time).

“If I told you about our travel and how the past few weeks have gone off the field, you’d be shocked,” Miller remarked on Thursday, minutes before the squad were due to check out of their hotel in Trinidad after their triumph over Afghanistan in the semifinal. 

That match finished just before 11pm local time on Wednesday, which Miller said he was grateful for, especially after their previous night match against the West Indies finished at 1am on Monday. 

“It’s been weird [with the] times matches are played, we started at 8.30pm [local time] last night [Wednesday]. We steamrollered them which was cool, we finished it earlier than expected, which was a good result. 

“There have been some interesting travel arrangements. It’s been a monumental effort from management and players to buy into where we are now,” said Miller.

The tournament’s scheduling has come in for criticism on various fronts.

Earlier in the competition the South Africans, Sri Lankans and Irish teams had to spend a night at an airport in Florida after their chartered flight didn’t arrive. 

Afghanistan were also stuck at an airport for four hours before the semifinal with South Africa, after their late finish in their last Super Eight match against Bangladesh.

The Sri Lankan team had the worst of the travel, covering a distance of 7,000km just for their group stage matches — three of which were in the US.

“It felt like the tournament dragged on in the beginning and in the last week, in the Super Eights, we’ve played back to back, playing in different islands, at different times, it doesn’t make sense,” said Miller.

“It could have been structured better in that regard and we could have rushed through the group stages, that would have made more sense. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

After their three games in New York, the Proteas’ next five matches all started at 8.30pm.

Their opponents in Saturday’s final, India, have not played a night match throughout the tournament.

All their matches have started at 10.30am local time, which is 8pm in India, prime time, for that nation’s large TV audience. 

The Indian schedule has been heavily criticised, with former England captain Michael Vaughan saying “the whole event has been geared towards India,” which was “so unfair on others”. 

Miller was asked if the South African players discussed the favourable arrangements for India but gave little away.

“There have been murmurs,” he said.

Besides having all their matches start at the same time, the venue and time of India’s semifinal was also locked in by the ICC before the tournament, paying no regard to where India finished after the Super Eight phase.