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WHILE THE atmosphere at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in Westbury, New York, has been impressive where a number of T20 World Cup games have been staged, the cricketers, batsmen in particular, are happy to see the back of the pitches there.

In seven T20 World Cup games from Groups A and D, a team is yet to score 140 on the ground, with the International Cricket Council coming in for some stick over the nature of what are called drop-in pitches.

South Africa, having won three matches from three starts to date, have been the most successful team in New York, but even they would not mind being able to avoid pitches of a similar nature.

South Africa batsman Heinrich Klaasen has made it clear that the batters can’t wait to see the back of the Nassau County surfaces.

“I think all the batters are keen to get out of this place, to be fair. The bowlers would love to stay here, but we’ve done our job, and that was the goal to win three out of three matches here. It was a little bit harder than we thought, but that’s also good preparation for going into the next phase of this competition.

The group leaders, South Africa, have already left for the Caribbean, where they will face Nepal on Friday in Kingstown.


Bangladesh, who suffered a nail-biting loss to the South Africans in front of 25,000 fans, are second in the group, and they are also keen to bid adieu to New York as the business end of the tournament draws closer.

“Here, the outfield is also slow. If you saw the last couple of matches here, it’s always low scoring, and I think it’s a bit challenging for batsmen. Every batsman here is struggling a bit,” said Bangladesh batsman Tawhid Hridoy.


Today the venue will see the final game of the tournament when the United States takes on India.

While blockbuster encounters like Pakistan vs India have drawn 35,000 fans into the stadium, journalist Nicholas Maitland from the Nation Publishing in Barbados, one of the few newsmen from the Caribbean to take in some of the action in New York, believes that the audience was a little shortchanged.

“I think the fans here wanted to see 350 plus combined runs and not necessarily 20 wickets, and that was the downside to some of the American venues, but in the Caribbean, I expect the batting to improve, with harder pitches and faster outfields.

Source: Jamaica-gleaner.com

In reply to Slipfeeler

These cry baby batsmen of today makes the old time batsmen who batted on uncovered pitches WITHOUT all of the fancy protective gear and support staff seem like GODS!!!!

In reply to mikelegend

Did the 'old time' batsmen play T20 cricket, or any white ball cricket for that matter?

In reply to mikelegend

...not seem like Gods ARE God's in comparison to some of these clowns.....true the pitches are not great but bad pitches exposes bad techniques even more....greats like Viv,Lara an many others i could name would not have been at their fluent best on these pitches but because of their sound techniques they would have found way to succeed more often than not!!

Aww, bless them...they wants to hit the big shots for the big scores...not fair sob, sob, sob...

Might as well just roll out a flat mat and give them a bowling machine...250 minimum scores happy, happy days for the mishit sixers.

These t20 super cowlashers, aka stars think they are the best thing since slice bread and deserve things catered to them.

They are just pissed that their flaws got exposed!

I have a different perspective on the matter, for I think the emphasis of T20 is to excite the crowd by hitting 4’s and 6’s, much like scoring baskets in a basketball game or home runs in a baseball match. People pay good money for that type of excitement and not to watch dot balls.

In my view, World Cup matches shouldn’t be played like franchise cricket. Pitches should be balanced, the grounds should be larger and not too fast. Chasing 20 runs or so in the final two overs should be challenging where running twos and threes brings on added urgency as opposed to relatively easily attained with a few big hits in smaller and faster outfields.

Small grounds diminish the game.

In reply to Slipfeeler

How many home runs are hit per game on average???
Besides, baseball is mostly dot balls!

In reply to InHindsight

I've no idea why you would ask such a question...are you saying the "old time" greats didn't or wouldn't have had the necessary skills to cope with t20/white ball cricket???

What is different is that most drop-in pitches tend to be batters friendly with predictable bounce, the ICC should investigate why the pitches in New York have behaved different.