The pitches have been the biggest talking point in the ongoing ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, co-hosted by the West Indies and the United States of America (USA), where the batters have found it quite tough to score runs, with the balls not coming on the bat nicely, and the Pakistan captain Babar Azam has advocated towards the scenario too.
The Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York saw some of the balls keeping quite low whereas few balls were bouncing more than enough from an awkward position, making life difficult in the middle for the batters, which eventually worked in the favor of the low-scoring games.
Given that the stadium was built only for the ninth edition of the tournament, the square of the surfaces was quite new, which meant the outfield was hard, and even if the batters would go for a big shot, they were not getting the right result of it, because of the ball not rolling to the boundary rope smoothly.
‘I was expecting someone to ask the question too’- Babar Azam
Under the leadership of Babar Azam, Pakistan played their very first game of the season at the Grand Prairie Stadium in Dallas, where the surface was quite good, as runs were coming if the batters kept them in good shape.
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But they lost in that ground to the United States of America, because the latter was quite comprehensive and energetic in their performances. Shaheen Shah Afridi, quite surprisingly, didn’t get the expected swing in those conditions as Pakistan failed to hold their nerve in the tricky situation in the contest.
When they reached in New York, to face the India team, the overcast conditions were perfect for their bowlers to bowl to the opposition batters, and they did an excellent job, especially towards the end of the innings. Later, when they came out to bat, their batters were bathing in bright sunshine in the middle.
The pitch lost its zip at the start, but given the moisture got dried up, the ball was comely slowly into the bat. Still, their target of 120 runs was quite chasable, especially from a position where the Babar Azam-led side needed 48 runs at run-a-ball with eight wickets in hand, but they couldn’t hold them for a long time.
Even during their last game at the Central Broward Regional Park Stadium Turf Ground, in Lauderhill, Florida, the wicket was quite bad for the batters and wasn’t favorable for the T20 cricket. Few of the wickets from both Pakistan and Ireland fell, where the batters had hardly anything to do.
Coming into the last press conference before the end of the tournament, Babar Azam was asked to put his view on how the batters feel on these surfaces.
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‘Thank God you asked this question, I was expecting someone to ask this question too. Regarding pitches, in New York, it was very dependent on the toss.’ Babar Azam expressed in the last presser. ‘I think the timing for these games was too early because every team won the toss and opted to bowl as there was help for the bowlers in the morning. The bounce is very inconsistent, sometimes it goes really high and sometimes very low.’
When asked whether these surfaces are good for T20 cricket, where batters generally expect 170-180 scores, it was coming down to 105-110, Babar Azam feels that the pitches for a World Cup should have been better.
‘As a batsman, you have to take time and build innings. People were expecting 170-180 but the maximum has mostly been around 140 or less. I think the pitches should have been better.’ The Pakistan T20I captain Babar Azam concluded.
