The controversy over facilities in Greater Noida continued as play on Day 2 of the one-off Test match between Afghanistan and New Zealand was once again called off without any action. The Greater Noida Authority has come under a lot of fire after the ground staff failed to get the field ready for play at the Pathik Sports Complex. The umpires cited “players safety” as a concern and although there was no rain on Tuesday, some wet patches on the field made it impossible for the officials to start the play. While Afghanistan have played majority of their games in India at Greater Noida, the BCCI gave the Afghanistan Cricket Board a few options including Kanpur, Bengaluru, and Greater Noida.
However, the ACB opted for Greater Noida for logistical reasons.
“The BCCI offered us three venues – Kanpur, Bengaluru, and this one. We chose to play at Greater Noida as it was most convenient in terms of logistics. It was a two-hour drive from Delhi airport,” Afghanistan board’s international cricket manager Menhajuddin Raz told reporters.
“The venue has always been Afghanistan’s home venue. If we talk about back from 2016, we have been playing games here,” ACB International cricket manager Menhaj Raaz said.
The area has been receiving incessant rainfall for the past two weeks, which ACB claims has played spoilsport.
“It is because of the rain. Yesterday also, it rained. We had a three-day game here with one of the local teams which went well. We didn’t face any issues. But when the rain started and all of this happened.”
Afghanistan Cricket Board has hosted 11 white-ball international games here before. The other Indian ground where they have hosted games is Dehradun.
“We had conducted a recce four to six months back, and even the visiting team had done their recce. So there was no issue” Raaz added that ACB considered moving the match to a different venue but the monsoon made it impossible.
“We tried working on a solution to shift the game and they said that because of the same rain, you will not be able to, you know, actually prepare the venue for you in the coming next 24 hours.”
(With PTI inputs)
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