By Zainab Shafiq 
The cricket fraternity is now focusing on the umpires for the T20 World Cup 2024. Still, a question mark hangs over the quality of the pitch and outfield at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York. Famed commentator and former cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar highlights the flaws the playing surface has on offer and says that the International Cricket Council should intervene immediately.
It was only a recent contest between South Africa and Sri Lanka that brought such heavy criticism for a pitch that, otherwise, was sourced from Australia. It was spongy and had quite a variable bounce. Runs refused to come by for the batters, with even boundaries proved rare. Sri Lanka was at the receiving end, being bowled out for a paltry 77 runs. Added to the misery was the slowness of the outfield, which made stroke play very difficult.
Manjrekar’s Call to Action
While hailing the authorities’ efforts to make it an “international standard” facility, Manjrekar felt the ICC should take up the issue immediately. He recommended more rolling of the wicket to make it harder, which would reduce the problems for the batters somewhat. But he did not have much hope of any radical difference, particularly in the slowness of the outfield.
The observations made by former player Manjrekar are quite similar to the question marks put up by many experts and aficionados, iterating the imperativeness of making the playing conditions perfect at such an event. More so, as far as India is concerned, three of their matches will be Group A matches here, so the matter becomes very serious now.
The matches at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium over the coming days will be a test, as it is the clash between India and Ireland on June 5. The onus is now on the ICC to quickly look into the shortcomings and provide a level playing field to all the teams as they clash against each other.
Also, Read: T20 World Cup 2024: Top 5 Ireland Players to Watch