Delhi faces axe as World Cup venue after match abandoned

Delhi is likely to lose its right to host four World Cup matches after the pitch for Sunday's abandoned game against Sri Lanka was deemed 'unfit'.

By Simon Briggs
Published:

5:59PM GMT 29 Dec 2009

We're off: Kumar Sangakkara leads his Sri Lanka players off the field in Delhi Photo: AFP

Match referee Alan Hurst labelled the Feroz Shah Kotla ground 'unfit' in his post-match report..

Guidelines laid out by the International Cricket Council suggest that any ground guilty of "repeat offences" should face a suspension, which usually lasts 12 or 24 months. And as Delhi had already been warned by ICC officials, who inspected the venue at the beginning of November, heavy penalties are expected to follow.

Sunday's match began with a vivid description from Sunil Gavaskar, the former India opener, who examined the irregular patches of bushy grass and said that the pitch looked as though it had had a hair transplant.

While the ground has produced low scores since the playing surface was relaid last winter, the way the ball misbehaved at the weekend was particularly alarming. It kept leaping unpredictably off a length, striking dangerous blows on the hands and forearms of Sri Lanka's batsmen, and in the 24th over their captain, Kumar Sangakkara, called them back into the dressing room. The score was 83 for five.

Chetan Chauhan, the former India batsman who is vice-president of the Delhi and Districts Cricket Association, launched a counter-attack against Sangakkara's team on Monday, accusing the Sri Lankans of calling the match off because they had been losing.

"Sri Lanka were at 83 for five and that's why they backed out," Chauhan said, while also claiming that he had batted on worse tracks in his own career. "It was the Sri Lankans who chickened out. I agree this was not ideal for international matches but this was neither unplayable or dangerous."

If the fiasco had happened at another of India's major centres, such as Calcutta or Mumbai, one might expect the Board of Control for Cricket in India to throw its weight behind the local cricket association.

But Delhi ranks a long way down the list of priorities for the BCCI. The four matches in question are not major contests in the context of the 2011 World Cup, as only one of them – South Africa v West Indies – involves two serious contenders...........LINK