It is quite astonishing, observed Daljit Singh, the former chief curator of the BCCI, at the poor quality of the drop-in pitches in New York being used for T20 World Cup games, especially those featuring India.
They are scheduled to play three matches as part of the New York world cup which include a much-awaited fixture against Pakistan on 9 June. A lot of attention was drawn to the pitch during their opening match against Ireland because it had an irregular bounce and some cracking.
The nature of this unbalanced pitch even led to a scary incident where Rohit Sharma, India’s captain, left the field after being hit by Josh Little’s delivery which jumped from a good length.
This occurrence has raised serious questions regarding player safety and well-being in the tournament.
“It is a very bad pitch. Drop-in pitch should have been well in advance installed. You have to play on it as well as use different rollers to increase density,” said Daljit who spent over two decades with BCCI working. Speaking to PTI he commented that: “it appears they just dropped without any preparation for it or anything like that; I’ll call it below par”.
In May earlier this year, ICC transported 10 drop-in wickets manufactured in Australia all the way from May through road transportation. Damian Hough was responsible for setting up all 10 wickets as Adelaide Oval’s Curator.
Four were allocated to be used on the main square while six were intended for practice purposes only.
“They should have put them [pitches] starting three months ago. They have had to increase density by heavy rolling then light rolling then cross rolling and diagonal rolling,
“Then break for few days and do exactly same thing again so that you can increase density There is uneven bounce; this is not ideal pitch for T20s. It doesn’t look great.
“More time should have been given to mature this pitch before using it. It is not mature enough for World Cup”, former first-class cricketer Daljit echoed.
The temporary facility in New York City had been set up since the beginning of this year, January. However, considering that the winter conditions in the area are generally harsh, it could have proved very difficult to pre-lay the pitches well before the event.
Asked how he expects the wicket to play on June 9, Daljit added: “I don’t know how it will play there; India Pakistan is a big game; I haven’t liked anything so far”.
Even though it’s a little slow on the outfield side, this doesn’t bother Daljit at all.
“The outfield seems to be okay but the pitch is where the main problem lies.”
On May 1st ICC had announced that starting from late December, Florida was getting 10 drop-pitches using proprietary techniques which were developed over ten years at Adelaide Oval.
They were later transported by more than twenty semi-truck trailers overland to New York.