India vs New Zealand, 2nd T20I: Lucknow pitch was overused, says UPCA official | Cricket News

MUMBAI: A senior official of the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association has blamed “overuse” for the poor quality of the pitch during the second T20I between India and New Zealand at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Stadium.
The match saw New Zealand manage to score just 99 for 8 in 20 overs, while India managed to reach the target with just a ball to spare. In a rare occasion in T20 cricket, not a single six was hit during the match, which witnessed 30 out of 40 overs of spin on a track where the ball turned square.
“To be honest, this was a shocker of a wicket,” Hardik said at the post-match presentation.

“We hosted too many tournaments at this stadium this season. We staged the (league stage of the) Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, then the Women’s Inter-Zonals, then the India versus South Africa ODI (on October 6 last year). This isn’t an excuse, but this wicket has never been used so much before. Since there were a few issues with the (Green Park) stadium in Kanpur, we had to host a lot of games here. In a regular centre which has the experience of staging matches, this kind of ‘rush of matches’ can be managed. However, here, we didn’t have the experience for that,” Ankit Chatterjee, the CEO of UPCA told TOI from Lucknow.
“The (cold) weather made things difficult for us, as the wicket takes longer to recover after a game in this climate. Having said that, a mistake has been made by our curator (Surendra Kumar, who has been sacked). There’s no running away from that. We can’t pass the buck. The pitch wasn’t up to the mark,” he said.
Defending the venue, Chatterjee said, “The previous international games here have been all high-scoring. At that time, there wasn’t so much ‘load’ on the wicket, so we had time to prepare the track for an international game.”

The previous international match in Lucknow, an ODI between India and South Africa, saw the Proteas score 249 for 4 in 40 overs, in reply to which India made 240 for 8. In the last T20I at this venue, on February 24, 2022, India scored 199 for 2 in 20 overs, in reply to which Sri Lanka made 137-6.
The UPCA officials are now quickly looking to quickly make course correction as the Ekana Stadium is the home venue of the Lucknow Super Giants in IPL-2023. This is the first time that LSG will be playing at home.
“As per the directions of Rajiv Shuklaji (BCCI vice-president) We’ve to take all the corrective measures in the next month or so, because we know that something like this cannot happen in the IPL. So, we’re getting two top-grade BCCI curators, who have the experience of preparing international venues. One will be the outfield specialist, while the other will be the pitch specialist,” he said.
BCCI’s chief curator Ashish Bhowmik refused to comment, citing that his “BCCI contract does not allow him to speak to the media.”