It can be easily said that playing the Irish in New York seemed to be a preparatory match for the clash of the giants on Sunday. India took on Ireland and went on to secure an easy win in their opening match of the T20 World Cup.
However, despite their team’s inevitable performance, even the Indian batters did not look relentless, as they struggled early on to score at a lower rate in the powerplay, only until the Indian skipper broke the shackles and took the game away with his ever-attacking play.
Under such difficult conditions, playing against the most deadly pace attack in the world would not be easy. Rohit retired hurt while facing a challenging bouncer from Irish pacer Josh Little. With such an uneven bounce and irregular pace variations on the pitch, batting conditions are extremely tough at the Nassau Cricket Stadium.
Rohit’s take on the unpredictability of the New York pitch
“I don’t know what to expect from the pitch, to be honest, but we will prepare as if the conditions are going to be like this,”
From the matches between South Africa and Sri Lanka, it was clearly indicated that the pitch is highly unpredictable, but it was also indicative of its largely favorable conditions for pace bowling. India hence came up with better pace bowling conditions alongside Pandya and even dropped master spinner Kuldeep Yadav to increase their depth in batting.
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Former English skipper Vaughan seemed disgusted as he called the New York track to be highly substandard and so unacceptable—a track unfit for playing the World Cup.
Wasim Jaffer went on to use sarcasm for the pitches at USA
“This is an excellent pitch in New York. The idea was to get the American audience hooked on Test cricket disguised as T20.”
Bumrah, who won the Man of the Match award for his brilliant spell of 2 for 6, also claimed that the pitch is very different from the general tracks he plays on. He also agreed that bowling under these conditions was what he enjoyed the most.
said Bumrah when talking of the behavior of the track
“Coming from India, when you see the ball seaming and doing quite a bit, with good bounce and pace, you’d never complain when there’s help for the bowlers,”
Just like Bumrah, Pakistan is tanked with a versatile and unstoppable pace trio of Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf, and Naseem Shah, alongside the experienced campaigner Mohammed Amir. On such a track, these four will trouble the Indian batters, as we should anticipate more rattling of stumps, 3-fers, and 5-fers than any kind of batting eminence.