Ahead of the 50-over World Cup in India later this year, the entire square of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium has been dug up and new pitches will be laid before the marquee event gets underway. The pitch received a lot of flak from both home and visiting teams during the IPL and it was then decided by the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association that necessary measures will be taken moment the cash-rich league ends. The last match played at the venue was on May 16 between Lucknow Super Giants and Mumbai Indians. After a day’s rest, work started on the square and is moving at a brisk pace to finish in time for the World Cup.
While the official list is yet to come out, it is reliably understood that Ekana is one of the shortlisted venues for the marquee tournament. The venue is now in a race against time to not only relay the square but also test it before the World Cup gets underway. On the sidelines of BCCI SGM in Ahmedabad, Vice-President Rajeev Shukla provided an update on the work and was confident of getting the square ready before the World Cup.
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“Aaram se (very easily),” was Shukla’s short response when asked whether the stadium will be ready in time for the World Cup. The senior BCCI official added that opinion of senior BCCI curators, from other states, is being sought and they want to have good wickets ready for the World Cup.
“The entire square has been dug up and we will have red soil wickets for starters. Don’t want to experiment too much this time around and 9 pitches will be laid out on the square. We are in regular touch with specialist BCCI curators who are assisting us in the entire operation. Experienced curator Taposh Chatterjee is overlooking the entire process too. World Cup is far but we are targeting to have it ready well before that. It will then allow enough time to test the surface before international games too,” says Shukla.
The Ekana is one of the fewer venues where the infrastructure and facilities are way better than the traditional old centres like the Wankhede in Mumbai and Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi, and the venue also has a more than decent official capacity of 50,000. The state-of-the-art venue, however, has been in the news for the poor quality of surfaces it has rolled out in the past. After the second T20I between India and New Zealand at this venue, hosts’ stand-in captain Hardik Pandya was very critical of the 22 yards and termed it “a shocker of a wicket”.
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“To be honest, this was a shocker of a wicket,” Hardik told official broadcasters at the post-match presentation. “Two games… the kind of wickets we played on, I don’t mind difficult wickets. I’m all up for that but these wickets are not made for T20 … Other than that, very happy”.
The previous curator was sacked after Hardik’s comments on the pitch but even the remedial measures didn’t result in better wickets during the IPL. It now remains to be seen whether UPCA will finally push pitch talk to the backseat and let the world-class facility receive the praise and appreciation it deserves.
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