Nearly a couple of months have passed since the end of the recent edition of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, where the grounds and the health of the pitches were under question for a long time. The new ground of Nassau County Cricket Stadium in New York, which hosted eight games of the event, didn’t receive much positive vibe from the teams.
On August 20, The International Cricket Council (ICC) released the pitch ratings for all 52 completed games of the event in the West Indies and the United States of America in June. Out of those 31-pitches were rated as ‘satisfactory’ while 18 tracks earned the ratings of ‘very good’.
Two games were abandoned during the tournament, while one ended without any result. The outfield at the start of the tournament in Nassau found the players hesitant while diving in the ground.
ICC rates first semifinal strip in Trinidad as ‘unsatisfactory’
The new Nassau County ground in the USA hosted eight games of the T20 World Cup 2024, out of which two received ‘unsatisfactory’ ratings for the Sri Lanka and South Africa game and the encounter between India and Ireland- both of which were the first two games of the ground.
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The 2014 champions struggled so much while batting first, as the batters could not score runs freely, with the opposition pacers getting the better of the Asian side badly. Chasing a stiff total of 78 runs, South Africa didn’t look smooth with the bat, as they took 16.2 overs and lost four wickets to get over the line.
The very next game at the venue found Ireland getting bundled out for just 96 runs, playing four overs short of their allotted 20 overs. The premier pacer of the Indian team, Jasprit Bumrah, ended with 2/6 in three overs.
The Rohit Sharma-led side wasn’t comfortable either in chasing the total, as their leader left the ground after scoring an unbeaten 52 runs in 37 balls at a strike rate of 140.54 due to taking a huge blow on his shoulder. The uneven bounce of the track didn’t help the batter to adjust to the scoring on the ground.
The first semi-final of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup was held at the Brian Lara Cricket Stadium in Trinidad between Afghanistan and the Proteas, where the latter shot out the opponents for a paltry 56 runs within 12 overs. That was the lowest score of the Asian side in the T20I format and was also the lowest total of the semi-final of a 20-over World Cup.
The Proteas took just around nine overs to chase the score down to make their first final appearance. The head coach of the Rashid Khan-led side, Jonathan Trott, blamed the track as he expected to get a simple and plain track to offer a fair contest.
“That’s not the pitch that you want to have a match, a semifinal of a World Cup, on plain and simple. It should be a fair contest.” Trott expressed at the end of the game. “I’m not saying it should be flat completely with no spin and no seam movement, but I’m saying you shouldn’t have batsmen worrying about going forward and the ball flying over their head.”
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The former captain of Australia, Ricky Ponting, also found it unconventional to use a fresh pitch for the semifinal.
“It seems strange to me that you’ll use a brand new wicket for a semifinal one that you’ve got no idea about how it’s going to play. We heard the preparation for this wicket started about a week and a half.” The Tasmania-born told the host broadcasters.
India went on to win the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 for the second time, beating South Africa, as the pitch at the Kensington Oval in Barbados was rated as ‘very good’ by the ICC.