HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka Cricket Thursday postponed until January the limited-overs series against the West Indies because of persistent bad weather. The tourists, who played three rain-hit drawn Tests in Sri Lanka over the past month, had been due to begin the five-match one-day series in the southern town of Hambantota Thursday. But with the rains showing no signs of abating, local cricket authorities decided to put off the matches until a yet to be decided date in January. “The series has been postponed till about the third week of January,” Sri Lanka Cricket spokesman Brian Thomas told reporters at the Suriyawewa Stadium in Hambantota. The matches are now expected to be played ahead of next year's World Cup being co-hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh from Feb. 17 to April 2. Hambantota is one of the two new venues alongside Pallekele that has been earmarked to host World Cup matches. The current tour, which was planned in 2006, has been marred by unusually bad weather with more rains forecast for the next two weeks in the island nation. At least six people have died and over 100,000 people left homeless due to torrential rains that have swept through Sri Lanka over the past week, officials said Thursday. Sri Lanka depends on monsoon rains for irrigation and power generation but the seasonal downpours frequently cause floods. The island's two main monsoon seasons run from May to September and December to February. – Agence France
