The controversy surrounding the facilities in Greater Noida escalated as Day 2 of the one-off Test between Afghanistan and New Zealand was canceled without any play. The Greater Noida Authority faced heavy criticism after the ground staff at the Pathik Sports Complex failed to prepare the field for action.
The umpires, citing “player safety” as a concern, couldn’t start play on Tuesday due to wet patches on the field, despite no rain that day. Although Afghanistan has played most of its matches in India at Greater Noida, the BCCI had offered the Afghanistan Cricket Board other venue options, including Kanpur, Bengaluru, and Greater Noida.
The Afghanistan Cricket Board chose Greater Noida for logistical reasons.
Afghanistan board’s international cricket manager Menhajuddin Raz said, “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.”
“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 ACB attributes the disruption to continuous rainfall in the area over the past two weeks, which they say has caused the issues.
“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.”
“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.”
