Green Park Stadium has stay of execution
The star offie also spoke on the other aspects of allotting Tests to smaller centres. “The second of it is there are certain requisite ingredients that go into making a Test match happen like the weather and the kind of drainage that we need to be able to invest in. These are no-brainers. But having said all this, does it help a player if you have just a few Test centres? Most certainly it does. Because when we go to Australia, they play India only at five test centres. They don’t play us at any of the other venues there. They won’t be very familiar with the conditions. So do England. They have certain select Test centres and that’s where they play. Some of those are only white ball centres. Can we do it here? That’s above my pay grade. I cannot comment on that.”
Given the fact that the Green Park Stadium was built in 1945, it does not have a drainage system which most of the modern stadiums have. It turned out to be an issue as water could not be drained out properly. The third day’s play was called off despite no rain as the wet outfield forced the match officials not to resume the match. BCCI vice president Rajeev Shukla and former secretary of the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association admitted there are a few issues with the venue but assured all of them will be addressed.
“This is an old ground which is among the five permanent Test centres in the country. This is the first time in 80 years that we could not host any play for two days. As history suggests, no match has been abandoned here. It’s just that due to so much rain, there was a bit of dampness. But there should not be hue and cry because when this ground was built, there was no technology.”
Adding further he said, “We have a modern stadium in Lucknow and are also building a hi-tech stadium in Varanasi with all facilities. Here in Kanpur too, we are having conversations with the authorities in terms of developing a system to soak rain water immediately. But such a thing like this had never happened in Green Park, and this time, we suffered. I had a discussion with the government and we can get things sorted soon.”
A positive result for India was the need of the hour and Rohit Sharma and Co managed that by playing some exciting brand of cricket. By doing that they not only boosted their chances of making it to the World Test Championship final but also gave a lifeline to the stadium.