Ireland vs Afghanistan, 1st ODI at Belfast, , Jul 10 2016 - Match Result

2.45pm Bad news I'm afraid, the ground just isn't going to dry quick enough and the Umpires have called off play for today. Shame. So thanks for following my weather updates throughout the day, sorry that there was no cricket to commentate on. Game 2 is on Tuesday so please join me then. Till then bye!

2.20pm Well the Umpires have been out looking and…..if we have no more rain they are looking to start play at around 4.15pm. It's a very big If though because there are still lots of black clouds around the ground.

1.35pm Its going from bad to worse here. The rain just keeps coming down and seems to be getting heavier. For those of you asking there is no reserve day. So when play gets abandoned today and you have to say that its very likely too, we will be back on Tuesday for the second game.

1.00pm Here comes the heavy rain again. The groundstaff are racing back on to secure the covers. This doesn't look good for any play today.

12.20pm Well 12.15 came and passed, the Umpires went out and then the drizzle has started coming down again. The Blotter is going up and down on top of the covers. Lots of people standing around looking at grass dry and then get wet again

Lunch is going to be taken early at 1.00pm and then the Umpires are going to have a look at the ground and see if we are going to be able to play then.

11.15am We have some news from the groundstaff that it's going to take an hour from now for the ground to dry. So it looks like the Umpires are going to be inspecting at 12.15pm. There is quite a bit of water on the ground. You have to expect that we are going to start losing overs, from 11.45am onwards. Really disappointing but what can you do about the weather?

10.50am Good News, well kind of. The rain has stopped. Hurrah. The blotter is slowly making its way out onto the field. Stormont is a fast drying ground so hopefully the rain hasn't done too much damage. Some of the Afghan team are out looking at the square so they seem hopeful.

10.20am I should be bringing you news of the toss right now, yet the rain is still falling. I don't want to bring you false hope but it does seem to be getting a tad lighter. David Jukes, the match referee is walking across the outfield. He hasn't got his umbrella up so maybe it's a good sign.

10.00am Good Morning and welcome to live coverage of the 5 match ODI series between Ireland and Afghanistan. It's Justin Smyth here and I am going to be bringing you live ball by ball commentary of this exciting series from the Civil Service Cricket Club in the grounds of Stormont, Belfast. The games are going to come thick and fast, with all 5 games over the next 9 days all here at the same venue.

This is the first 5 match series between these two nations so I'm sure that both teams will be looking to prove that they are the leading associate nation. Ireland come into this series on a bit of a low, after the battering that they took when Sri Lanka were the visitors to Dublin in the middle of June. Unsurprisingly there have been changes made to their squad, mostly on the bowling side. Some enforced changes and some not.

Peter Chase, Tyrone Kane and Mark Adair where originally called up to replace George Dockrell, Max Sorensen who had both been dropped and Boyd Rankin who has been rested. Mark Adair, the Warwickshire seamer, would have been making his debut for Ireland but picked up a back injury playing for his county. So after looking at the pitch, Ireland coach John Bracewell decided a reprieve for Dockrell was necessary, so maybe we are going to see spin play a part in these games.

Afghanistan's tour of Europe got off to a great start with two games in Scotland last week. They dominated with the bat, dominated with the ball and outclassed an experienced Scotland team. Taking the series 1-0, which would have probably been 2-0 if it hadn't been for the world famous Scottish Summer weather.

Rahmat Shah and Najibullah Zadran took the opportunity to score heavily in the first ODI, with the former scoring a classy century and the latter well on the way to his too when rain decided that the spectators had seen enough play for that day.

Mohammad Shahzad was the batting star of the rain affected 2nd ODI, with the explosive opening bat/ wicketkeeper scoring nearly half of Afghanistan's runs. Then once the bowlers got to work, Scotland were all out for 132 to give Afghanistan the win. I'm sure that they will want to continue to this good form today.

Talking about the weather, it's not been much better on this side of the Irish Sea then it was when Afghanistan visited Scotland. Stormont is a ground that just seems to attract clouds like a magnet, today is no different. At the minute it looks like we are going to have a delayed start as its pouring down with rain, there is a strong breeze across the ground so hopefully it can blow the clouds away soon.