Amidst all the euphoria over cricket’s arrival in America, there is now a big question mark hanging over what many regard as the most vital part of the game – the pitch. The Nassau International Cricket Stadium has been in existence for two consecutive years and will not be an easy place to play matches for teams priced below 100 when New York hosts a high-profile India-Pakistan match on Sunday.
The South Africans reached their target with 16.4 overs remaining after the Sri Lankans were bowled out for 77 runs. Even in Ireland, India’s top order failed to reach 97 on Wednesday. While Rohit SharmaVirat Kohli and Reesha Pant seemed like a fish out of water while trying to hit balls from Irish they too found it hard to open their accounts in Indian soil.
After everything else, winner takes it all as they say. In addition to that being affected by fluctuations of the wicket New York, playing the game at this juncture was difficult because at 10:30 am there was so much movement on white ball.
“Yes, toss is important and thankfully we won it today (against Ireland). That gave us control and we went about doing our business,” Vikram Latour batting coach explained. However, soon as he asked what would be par score if he were ever asked anything about Ind vs Pak Ratul merely replied “Anything.”
This former indian spinner Harbhajan Singh The person commenting here sounds also worried “What worries me is that some rise ones are going up and some down. Anything can happen on such track,” Harbhajan told TOI.
Only captain Rohit has to fight fire with fire though unsuccessfully. He held his ground until he was hit on his right shoulder by one which rose sharply around off stump for him to edge behind when he made only fifty-two runs after an insecure start. Although Hafeez expressed concern over retiring due to injury, he said much later that he had only finished with a “wee bruise” and nobody was worried about him carrying on in the Pakistan game.
Rohit knows better than anyone else that in Pakistan the decibels increase exponentially and any negative result just adds to the noise. “I don’t know if I’m being honest, but we will prepare like this is how it will be,” the captain revealed.
However, Ratu expect their batting line-up to respond to whatever comes their way because of its quality. Ratu put into words “It’s a challenging wicket and you have got to find a way around it. We have some skill, experience and there are players who have been through these types of situations before,” says he.
According to the International Cricket Council, pitch performance in New York was unsatisfactory and ground staff were working to salvage the situation before Sunday’s India-Pakistan match. “T20 Inc and ICC acknowledge that we have not obtained consistent results from the pitch so far which we had expected,” ICC said in a statement.
“The world-class grounds team has been working tirelessly since yesterday’s game ended to correct this and ensure a good surface for the rest of the match.”
