
International Cricket Council (ICC) will not be moving any of the T20 World Cup matches out of New York, despite growing fears over substandard pitches and outfield. Instead, ICC is reported to analysing data from previously abandoned games to establish howit need to act, BBC has claimed.
Since the Nassau County Stadium was developed from scratch in the last few months, drop-in pitches that were prepared in Australia and later curated in Florida have been used for the two matches. The outfield has also been laid down artificially which means the ball cannot zip through the surface when the batter times it.
In the two matches so far, no team has been able to cross the three figure mark as stroke-making remains difficult.According to a BCC report, after India played their first match against Ireland, the team management privately voiced their unhappiness with the unpredictable bounce and two-paced nature of the strips.
Former Indian cricketer-turned-pundit, Irfan Pathan did not mince any words in criticising the pitch. Pathan said if such pitches were used in India, the stadiums would not be allotted another match.
"Look, we definitely want to promote cricket in America, but this pitch is not safe for players. If we had a pitch like this in India, a match would never be played there again for a very long time. This pitch is definitely not good. I mean, we are talking about the World Cup here, not even a bilateral series," Pathan stated on Star Sports.
Wasim Jaffer, another former Indian cricketer, took a jab at ICC by suggesting that the pitch seemed more suited for Test cricket than T20. "This is an excellent pitch in New York. Provided the idea was to get the American audience hooked on to Test cricket disguised as T20," Jaffer posted on X.
The concerns are legitimate as India square up against Pakistan in their next match at the same stadium. The uneven bounce could provethe undoing of a contest that has been billed as the biggest match of the tournament for months.
(With inputs from agencies)