The curator of the pitch at Lucknow’s Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium which had come under criticism from India captain Hardik Pandya has been sacked, said a media report. While India won the Lucknow T20I by six wickets to stay alive in the three-match series, it was a very difficult pitch to bat on. New Zealand managed 99/8 in 20 overs batting first and India in reply crawled successfully to the target in 19.5 overs. No six was hit in the match.
After the game, a disappointed Pandya had labelled the pitch a “shocker of a wicket”.
“To be honest, this was a shocker of a wicket. Two games the kind of wickets we have played on. I don’t mind difficult wickets. I am all up for that, but these two wickets are not made for T20. Somewhere down the line the curators or the stadium whichever we are going to play in T20, they should make sure they prepare the pitches earlier, rather than having a couple of games there,” Pandya had said.
According to a report in the Indian Express, the pitch curator has been replaced by Sanjeev Agarwal from Gwalior to get the pitch ready for IPL 2023. The report also added that the last-minute request from Team India management could have played a role in the pitch behaving so poorly. It said that two black soil pitches were prepared for the game but the management asked the curator three days before the game to prepare a red soil pitch, however, the lack of time led to a slow pitch.
Even the pitch on offer in the first T20I in Ranchi favoured the spinners strongly though batting was still easier there.
India’s third T20I will be played on Wednesday (1 February) at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
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