Once again on day two of the one-off Test match between Afghanistan and New Zealand, no action was taken as play was called off again amidst controversies over facilities in Greater Noida. After the field staff did not get the pitch ready for play at Pathik Sports Complex, the Greater Noida Authority has come under a lot of fire. The umpires cited concerns over it but there was no rain on Tuesday, which made it unplayable with some wet patches on the ground. While Afghanistan have played most of their games in India at Greater Noida, BCCI gave few options to Afghanistan Cricket Board like Kanpur, Bengaluru and Greater Noida.
In any case, due to logistical reasons ACB preferred instead to go to Greater Noida.
“The BCCI offered us three venues- Kanpur, Bengaluru and this,” said Menhajuddin Raz who is Afghanistan board’s manager for international cricket. Additionally he added: “We chose it as the most convenient venue in terms of logistics since it was only two hours’ drive from Delhi airport.”
“Ever since 2016 this place has been our home stadium,” said Menhaj Raaz who is the international cricket manager at ACB.
Rainfall has been continuous for the past two weeks according to ACB which claims is the reason why they are not playing today.
“I don’t know if you are aware but it has been raining. We had a three-day game over this side with one of our local teams which went well. There were no issues at all. But when the rain started everything changed.”
In the past, Afghanistan Cricket Board had hosted eleven white-ball internationals here. The other venue in India where they have held matches include Dehradun.
Four to six months ago we did a recce and even the visiting team had done theirs,” said Raaz, he added that ACB thought of moving to another venue but monsoon made it impossible.
We attempted to come up with a way of moving the game from here but they said that because of the same rain, you won’t be able to do any preparations for your venue in approximately twenty-four hours’ time
