Sunil Gavaskar slams CSA for uncovered ground during the 1st T20I match between South Africa and India which was washed out by rain in Durban.
Sunil Gavaskar slams CSA for poor ground cover management
The Indian legend Sunil Gavaskar was furious about Cricket South Africa’s actions on India’s series opener game on South Africa tour was called off due to continuous rainfall in Durban.
The field was left uncovered before the toss as the rain stopped at Durban. But soon it started to rain again and the first T20I match was abandoned without a ball being bowled at Kingsmead.
After registering a 4-1 T20I series victory against Australia’s tour of India, India is set to play in a multi-format series in South Africa. The CSA board is expected to earn more than a billion rand with their side playing against Men in Blues.
Pholetsi Moseki, the chief executive of the South Africa cricket board has calculated that the Proteas board will have a good revenue on this tour.
But the intervention of rain has changed the conditions for the first match of the South Africa tour and Gavaskar was furious about the preparations for the series-opening game.
While speaking on the air, Sunil Gavaskar said, “If the ground remains uncovered and the rain stops, you know it doesn’t start for another one hour. Suddenly it rains again. So there’s no play whatsoever. Everybody (cricket boards) is getting a lot of money.”
“Let’s make no mistake. All the cricket boards have got plenty of money. If they say they don’t, they are lying. They might not have as much money as the BCCI. Fair enough. But every board has got money to buy these covers to cover the entire ground,” he said.
He also recalled the moments at World Cup 2019 where most of the matches were abandoned or no result games due to rain. He added that the results ended in this way as they did not cover the ground.
“So many World Cup matches in England did not take place because the ground was not covered. The rain had stopped, but the rest of the ground was, you know, wet. So a lot of teams lost points.”
“South Africa, I remember that they wanted to play against some team and the match didn’t take place or something had happened, mainly because the outfield was wet,” Gavaskar continued.
He praised the BCCI president Sourav Ganguly as India has Eden Gardens which has a fully covered rain management system stadium.
“What the boards need to do now is to cover the entire ground. Let’s have no excuse. I remember I think there was one Test match at Eden Gardens called where there was some problem at the game didn’t start.”
“Next game, Eden Gardens had the entire ground covered. That is the kind of initiative that you want to have. Sourav Ganguly was the man in charge and he made sure that nobody could point the finger at Eden Gardens,” Gavaskar concluded.
However, the second T20I match will be played on December 12 at St George’s Park, Gqeberha.
