The final game that was supposed to take place between Afghanistan and New Zealand turned out to be a bowl free contest as in no ball was delivered and not even the toss took place, so there were a few impact statements from Jonathon Trott (Afghanistan Points) and Gary Stead (New Zealand Points) the respective head coaches at the post-abandonment press conference that took place on Friday.
Factors such as unseasonable wet weather, mediocre level of the drainage, unqualified and insufficient staffing of the ground and overall lazy preparation of effective kits that could mitigate the eventuality of the blunders, compounded into the two teams staying in their hotels most of the time when the Test was being held.
In the first two days, however, erect sunshine was observed the entire day at the Shaheed Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex, but no cricket was played on that day’s game because it was again declared on both days ‘due to “wet outfield damp patches in the playing area”.
Both the coaches were ‘disappointed and frustrated’ over not having played a single ball in the entire Test and Trott went on to say that some of the Afghan players were:’heartbroken’.
“When your expectations are so hard that you expect to play on the first day itself, the whole water doesn’t cross. Unfortunately for us we learnt that whole water didn’t cross,” said Trott. However, we were overwhelmed by New Zealand’s challenge and were eager to stand up to it. We had done warm-up games and got acclimatised with the weather. The good thing was we had practice on the square in the days leading to the Test, so we actually saw the pitch. So, as the match got closer and the day came closer and we just had chewing gums for this game as it was growing within us. So, that’s why you have that kind of disappointment that not a single day could be played is simply heartbreaking.” Stead supported Trott’s concerns. New Zealand, in particular, wanted to practice in T20 cricket before heading into the grueling 5 match World Test Series against Sri Lank (2) and India (3) for the WTC matches, but that didn’t happen.
The most irritating for us is that we missed the chance to be ready for a Test match when we face Sri Lanka next week,” Stead said. “The guys are really disappointed. One more time it was a chance especially for playing Afghanistan. Such opportunities do not appear afar. They have some interesting bowles and it is always useful to know how one attempts. The way they go is quite different than the way other countries go. It is always what can be done when such circumstances arise.”
Even so easily in few words, Trott commented his dissatisfaction with the drainage management of Shaheed Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex.
“It is my hope that it is a good learning case (for organisers) that situations can crop up… everything has got to be checked out and made sure that it’s ready for Test match cricket. As always, it is Test cricket at the end anyway. And that is, I believe, something that we, at times, take it for granted when we go and play. First of all, there are things carried out in the previous years for other nations or other venues, – the drainage or ground staff and all those sorts of things,” Trott said, inferring through his inspiration that he may have lowered the true euphony of the practical reality.
There have also been expressed the emotions of aforementioned city natives relevance to the time period of last ten days by England’s former opening batsman.
“To try and play a Test Match at this time of the year is always a bit of a gamble. The amount of water that is coming down currently is not normal for this time of year or even for the past 3 or so days. But it was said it would have been good to play some cricket that is for sure,” Trott said.
Even though the rather notional engagement for loss was also a notional engagement of the WTC Games was, gleeful to the Black Caps coach Stead the, this is, in my opinion, ‘then why did we not get any play. It was quite ‘disheartening’’
“We came here to play cricket and play a Test match. Test cricket, certainly to our group of players, is quite, quite close to our heart and every Test you take part in is an important one. Now, it doesn’t matter if it has the World Test Championship points or no, it was upon getting out there for five days and playing. The wicket seemed perfect. The whole block seemed superb, so it wouldn’t have been a bad match of Test cricket,” stated Stead.
