England v Pakistan - Test Match & T20 Series 2020

No play was possible due to rain & bad light on day 2 of the 2nd Test between England & Pakistan.

I can't understand how you can have bad light when the grounds have floodlights.

It is such a shame.
The cricket on show in this series has been engrossing stuff. To see it blighted by rain and bad light is really annoying .

Unfortunately common sense doesn't always prevail in these situations. The overriding factor in all of this is the safety on the players, umpires & spectators (when present :rolleyes) The cricket governing body the ICC have to be mindful in this Health & safety mad world that they do all they can to mitigate the situation. It would only take one serious injury or loss of life & they would be looking at legal claims in the 7 figure range, which they don't want. The cricket ball is hard, ask Notts Luke Fletcher who was out all the game after being struck on the head on his follow through while bowling in a T20 match. I've loss count of the times when I've attended a game & an ambulance has carted someone off, after being hit in the crowd & they at least 70 metres away. Players are hitting the ball harder now & the ball can travel long & fast. I've in grounds all my life & you get used to following the path of the ball but sometimes you don't pick it up at all, or lose sight of it at the last minute, that's the time to duck, cover your face & hope for the best.
The general consensus among the media & fans is that they are seen to be consistent in their decisions. In this case everyone including both sets of players looked surprised on the evening of day one when the umpires took them off. It didn't look bad (modern tv cameras enhance the light) but a reading is taken & that is the level that they work to for the rest of the match. I don't even know if a standard light level is used across the board or if they just use their judgement.
In some cases umpires take into account who is bowling & will often give the captain the chance to carry on playing if he bowls slow bowlers or spinners, even then as the light deteriorates they will decide that it's to dark for them to to bowl. Again England had no 90 mph bowlers in their side, but they couldn't bowl. had Pakistan been bowling who have 2 bowlers quicker that England's they would have presumably been penalized earlier by being taken out of the attack or off the field.
On the subject of floodlights, cricket differs from most other sports, the lights are only there to enhance the natural light & not replace them. Once the lights have taken over the natural light shadows are created from each individual pylon, usually 4 or more. Shadows of the ball on the pitch can then be mistaken or confused with the real ball pitching, so off-putting & possibly quite dangerous. Also at this point it effectively becomes a night match so the red ball is less visible & a change to a white or pink ball & black sightscreens would be required & the age of the ball taken into account & the possible swapping from ball to ball. I could go on...

Day 4
Pakistan 236 all out (91.2 overs) Mohammad Rizwan 72 Broad 4-56 Anderson 3-60
England 7-1
Play started almost on time, apart from a stupid delay for sawdust required which should've already been available. Rain retuned after about an hour with Sibley & Crawley surviving testing batting conditions.

I agree something does need to be done, but for me the weather is the only thing that man has no control over. I think it can be a difficult thing to find a way forward, but I am wondering at which point can you abandon a match that has started as a draw? The only other thing I would be think that could be looked at is either - 1) Use the last day of a Test match as a extra T20 match to settle things, but I am sure that somewhere in the laws there is a law that can be used that can be brought into play that can extend playing time by an extra day so a result could be achieved or. But didn't South Africa & England faced a similar situation in SA several years ago? When Nasser Hussain was captain and they made some sort of agreement which saw England achieve a win. I can't actually remember what the agreement was.

I can remember years back an ODI was played, on the last scheduled day of a Test, but I can't remember how far the match had progressed or even started. In the past Tests & ODI were sometimes mixed up, but not now. Besides we have separate white ball & red ball squads & no fans in attendance to consider.
Doubtful about an extra day, 3 days between matches is about the minimum now, although there may have been to odd time of a 2 day gap.

Pakistan.

Play called off for the day. I'm gonna stick my neck out here & predict a draw.

Thunderstorms overnight left the ground flooded. Play didn't start until 3.20, Root declared England's innings at 110-4 with no positive result possible the game ended in a draw going into the last hour.
Notable mention for Zak Crawley's 53, who punished the bad ball & took the attack to Yasir Shah, although man of the match Rizwan missed a stumping chance. as expected Abbas 2-28 was a handful on this wicket.