There was no rain at Inexperienced Park stadium right here all through Sunday, however not a ball was bowled for the second successive day of the India-Bangladesh Check. The explanation: an out of date drainage system.
With solely 35 overs potential over three days, a draw is on the playing cards, a outcome that might affect India’s possibilities of making it to the World Check Championship (WTC) last. Main 1-0 within the collection, Rohit Sharma and his males are scheduled to play New Zealand at house, adopted by a five-Check tour of Australia.
Uttar Pradesh Cricket Affiliation (UPCA) treasurer Prem Manohar Gupta did concede that Inexperienced Park wasn’t as upgraded as many different Check grounds the world’s richest cricket physique owns throughout the nation.
“Look, it’s an previous floor. This floor doesn’t have trendy amenities. We’re planning to restructure the drainage system, proper after this match. We are going to uplift the drainage system in a approach that the match begins the second rain stops,” Gupta instructed The Indian Specific.
BCCI vice-president and Rajya Sabha Congress MP Rajeev Shukla, who at the moment holds no place in UPCA however has been linked to UP cricket for near twenty years, blamed the rain for the debacle. “What can we do? It’s a 75-year-old stadium. It’s a heritage venue. It’s a everlasting Check centre additionally. We are able to’t management the climate. If it rains closely, even stadiums with a correct drainage system can’t take it. Blaming the centre for that’s flawed,” he mentioned.
Shukla went on so as to add, “We’ve got to relay the bottom and repair the drainage. Again then when Inexperienced Park was constructed, there was no idea of drainage.”
The UPCA doesn’t personal Inexperienced Park stadium however obtained it on a 30-year lease from the state authorities. The opposite worldwide floor within the state — Lucknow’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium — is owned by Ekana Sportz Metropolis’s administration.
On the problem of India’s most populated state not having a BCCI-owned venue for years, Shukla mentioned, “We’ve got Ekana in Lucknow, which was developed just a few years in the past. It’s geared up with all trendy amenities. One in Varanasi is below building and will probably be practical quickly.”
Not simply the drainage, even the stadium construction was not discovered to be match prepared on Check eve. Majority of tickets for Stand C, near the press field, weren’t bought because it was deemed unfit by the Uttar Pradesh Public Works Division (PWD). The Indian Specific had reported that there have been security issues in regards to the higher block stand, which has a capability of 4,800. The venue’s safety association too got here below the scanner when a well known Bangladesh fan alleged that he was overwhelmed up on Day 1 of the Check.