India (W) vs SL Women, 1st Semi-Final at Guangzhou, , Oct 30 2012 - Ball by Ball Commentary

09:04 local Hello and welcome to "Semi-Finals" day at the ACC Women's T20 Asia Cup.

Let me give you the bad News first because there is no good News to pass on... It has been raining continuously here in Guangzhou from yesterday evening and as I type this out the covers are firmly in place and the steady drizzle continues.

The outfield here is pretty good but the square is bit of a problem, hopefully the covers are doing their job.

Toss is certainly delayed. Locals believe that the drizzle will continue for sometime but it could get worse as this rain is a side effect of a typhoon which has hit the Philippines and some parts of China.

India team news Jhulan Goswami and Mithali Raj have both been ruled out of the rest of the tournament due to ankle injuries.

Will keep you updated as things move along...for now we wait and hope.

09:33 local The drizzle has stopped but it is still very hazy and dark giving one a feeling that it could restart any moment...but bit of respite for now and that bring out the umpires, the match referee and a few players from both teams.

09:37 local A much larger crowd now, we have the volunteers and ground staffs moving in and they are looking to remove the water off the covers.

09:41 local As expected it has started to drizzle again and those who ventured out are slowly making their way back to safety of the pavilion.

10:26 local Lot of activity in the middle, the ground staffs and volunteers are busy moping the water off the covers. In the meantime it continues to drizzle, so still a long way to go before we can see some action. Every minute lost from here on will add to the reduction in overs.

10:42 local It is still the same, nothing much to report apart from the fact that they are trying to dry a patch on the square by laying sponge beds over the wet area, and I 'think' they are going to run the roller over it...

11:05 local Nothing much has changed since the last update,if anything, the drizzle is slightly heavier now...

Guangzhou is basically a big green/clean city with a lots of universities in it and the students make up the bulk of the population here. One report says that over 70,000 students study in the various universities here.

There is an army of student volunteers here helping the organizers and they work tirelessly day in day out and they just seem to enjoy every bit of it, the effort they put in is really commendable.

11:30 local Steady drizzle and almost everyone has left the middle, they have stopped the mopping effort. Just a few Sri Lanka players out there playing football.

With just one hour left, I see no chance of the first game starting now. There will an official announcement soon and If the game is called off India will go through to the final since they topped the pool table.

11:41 local The outfield at this venue is really good so we could get a start once the covers are removed. It has stopped drizzling and they are looking at removing the covers but is there enough time for a 5-overs games?

11:50 local The covers were removed and they did manage to roll the pitch for about 3 minutes before it started to drizzle again and the covers had to be pulled back in place.

11:57 local More covers coming in...

12:20 local "Called-off" - it is official now and so India go through to the final.

Conditions starting to improve here so the second game is very much on...see you at the other window.