When India had their first practice session last week in the build-up to their warm-up game against Bangladesh in New York, a report claimed the team management was not happy with the facilities provided to the team at the practice venue at Cantiague Park, which is roughly five miles away from the main venue, Nassau County International Cricket Stadium, where they are slated to play three of their four league matches in the T20 World Cup. On Sunday, amid the widespread criticism of the New York track during the match between Sri Lanka and South Africa, India head coach Rahul Dravid took aim at ICC over the practice facilities provided to the team for the tournament.
“It’s a bit strange to be practicing in a park,” said Dravid ahead of India’s World Cup opener against Ireland on Wednesday. “Obviously at the World Cups you’d be in big stadiums or you’d be at cricket stadiums traditionally. But you know, we’re at a public park and practicing,” he added with a smile of sarcasm.
Overall, the makeshift stadium in New York will host eight of the total 16 matches as part of the US leg of the T20 World Cup. The head curator of Adelaide Oval, Damian Hough, who was in charge of the drop-in pitches, ensured last month “a product of the highest quality.” However, in the first international game at the venue, only 157 runs were scored in 35.4 overs at a run rate of just 4.4, where Sri Lanka were folded for their lowest-ever T20I total of 77 runs.
The pitch that displayed uneven bounce along with a poor outfield was subject to criticism from pundits and Dravid was well aware of the buzz around the Sri Lanka-South Africa match and only hoped that the conditions would improve with each passing game.
“Yeah, obviously it’s slightly different. It’s obviously exciting that it’s coming to a new country, it’s coming to a new place. (It) feels slightly different in terms of, I guess, typically the buzz that you have around these events, with cricket not being one of the major sports in this country. So you don’t feel that kind of buzz over here. But hopefully once our games start and a lot of the Indian fans do start coming in, you start seeing that similar kind of excitement.
“So things are certainly different from that perspective. But yeah, I think from a preparation perspective and from what we want to get out of it, I don’t think that’s changed, our preparation, our professionalism, the way we are trying to approach things. It’s pretty, pretty similar to what we would normally do.”
