India and New Zealand will play in the first semi-final of the 2023 ODI World Cup on a used pitch in Mumbai on Wednesday. The pitch has already hosted two matches in the competition. The Men In Blue are on a roll winning nine out of nine games in the league stage of the tournament.
A report that the Wankhede track had been altered and accused the BCCI of breaking the agreement with ICC just prior to the semi-final matchup with the New Zealanders. The original plan for the pitch for Wednesday’s game was to use No. 7, a brand-new, unutilized surface. However, No. 6 was ultimately chosen instead for the highly-anticipated game.
According to Daily Mail UK, BCCI has switched the pitch for the semifinal clash against New Zealand without the permission of the International Cricket Council (ICC).
“Indian board have switched the pitch for their team’s semi-final on Wednesday against New Zealand in Mumbai without the ICC’s permission.”
The accusations are made ahead of the pivotal match, which gets underway on Wednesday At ICC events, pitches are created under the guidance of a consultant hired by the ICC governing body, who also decides ahead of time which surface to utilize but it has broken by BCCI, according to Daily Mail.
An unused surface had been chosen for India vs. New Zealand match, and ICC consultant Andy Atkinson and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had agreed ahead of time that the match would now take place on a surface that had been used twice, which could help India’s World-class spin attack in Mumbai.
According to reports, a Whatsapp message was sent to 50 Indian and ICC officials, indicating that the semifinal will take place on surface No. 6, which is where the pool matches between India and Sri Lanka and South Africa and England were held and informed that the initial surface choice had an unidentified issue.
It was also reported that concerns existed around the possibility of arbitrary changes being made to the Ahmedabad final surface. It is said that pitch No. 6 would be used for the final of the tournament, which could assist spinners more than pitch No. 5, which was recommended by ICC consultant Andy Atkinson.
