Sunil Gavaskar has lashed out at Cricket South Africa for not having good enough arrangements to ensure that the first T20I between South Africa and India was not washed out in Durban on Sunday (December 10).
The first match of India’s tour to South Africa was called off yesterday (December 10) at Kingsmead in Durban as players were unable to take to the pitch due to persistent light rain. The toss, scheduled for 4pm local time, did not take place due to weather.
Although the pitch and its surrounding areas were covered, a large part of the outfield was not, something former India team captain Sunil Gavaskar objected to.
Covers on at Kingsmead with rain about. Crossing fingers that the weather clears up! #SAvIND pic.twitter.com/rMdZy2Icxu
– Kass Naidoo (@KassNaidoo) 10. December 2023
In an interview with Star Sports, Gavaskar highlighted the dangers of not covering the entire ground when it rains. “If the rain stops without covering the ground, you know it won’t start for another hour,” Gavaskar said. “Suddenly it started raining again, so we couldn’t play the game at all.”
Gavaskar said that despite the financial disparity between cricket associations around the world, each board has enough resources to cover the entire pitch.
“Every cricket association has a lot of money. If they say they don’t, they’re lying. To be fair, they don’t have as much money as the BCCI. Maybe. But each board has enough funds to buy these covers to cover the entire premises,” Gavaskar said.
Gavaskar pointed out that a similar incident happened during the 2019 World Cup in England. “Many of the World Cup matches in England were not held because the grounds were not covered,” Gavaskar said. “The rain had stopped, but the rest of the ground was wet. So many teams lost points.”
England lost four matches at the 2019 World Cup.
Gavaskar gave an example of Eden Gardens and how the entire ground is covered when it rains, saying, “Sourav Ganguly was in charge and made sure that no one could point at Eden Gardens. .”
The second leg of the series will be played tomorrow (December 12) in Gukebera. Rain is also expected for this match.
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