Rain Washes Out Rawalpindi Clash, Australia and South Africa Share Points

Australia's Champions Trophy showdown with South Africa was abandoned on Tuesday because of persistent rain, and both Group B giants ended up with a point apiece.

Weather was so bad that even the toss was not possible. Since the rain did not abate at all, the match officials had no choice but to abandon the game more than three hours after the scheduled kickoff.

Even though the match cut-off time was 7:32 PM, officials decided to cancel it much earlier, considering the continuous rain.

Since the match did not produce any result, both teams earned a point each. This result has made Wednesday's England vs. Afghanistan match a virtual knockout, with the losing team becoming the third team to be eliminated from the ICC event.

Conveying his disappointment, South Africa captain Temba Bavuma stated, "Yeah, it is frustrating – well, we'd have obviously loved to get a game of cricket. Like I said, you would have had two sides who were confident coming into the game.".

The last performance that we caught against Afghanistan, which I found to be pretty clinical and now clearly against a hard unit in Australia to get over the line then would have served us well from the confidence perspective."

Tournament hosts Pakistan and Bangladesh were officially eliminated from the competition on Monday after both teams suffered consecutive losses.

Australia and South Africa had both also made successful starts, having defeated England and Afghanistan, respectively.

Australia's captain Steve Smith also commented on the washed-out match, "I did look on the Apple weather a couple of days ago and I saw a few days of rain. But yeah, I didn't expect it to be washed out. But yeah, not ideal, but can't do much about it.

Interestingly, this is Australia's fourth abandoned match in their last eight Champions Trophy matches. Their next game against Afghanistan will be played in Lahore on February 28, and South Africa face England in Karachi the following day.

The semifinalists of Group A have already been determined, with India and New Zealand booking their places after each winning both of their first-round games.

With rain also predicted in Rawalpindi and Lahore, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) will be hoping the weather does not further hinder the tournament.

Pakistan is staging an ICC event for the first time in 29 years. But with the national team already out of the running for the semifinals, the PCB has a tall order to keep local fans interested in the rest of the competition.