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New York cricket has had a difficult start, with more attention being paid to the pitches than to the cricket that has been played on them. In four innings, no team has scored more than 100 at this location, and there has been much criticism directed towards the uneven bounce and extraordinary movement up front.
Thus far, the fast bowlers have dominated this match, taking 18 of the 26 wickets that have fallen at an economy rate of 5.46. On June 3, Sri Lanka was bowled out for 77 here, and it took South Africa 16.2 overs to reply. India defeated Ireland for ninety-six on Wednesday, and although their chase was a little easier, Rohit Sharma had to depart hurt after taking a blow to the upper arm while Rishabh Pant was also hit on his elbow and required some attention.
Just two days later, as Ireland gear up to play another fixture in New York against Canada, the build-up has entirely centred around the pitch.
“It’s tough to adjust when you don’t know what you have to adjust to,” Ireland head coach Heinrich Malan said after their eight-wicket loss against India. “You’ve got to take into account that when you play the game you need a really good surface or as good as surfaces you can get and unfortunately what we’ve seen over the last couple of games just doesn’t necessarily live up to that. So hopefully, over the next day or so it can hopefully flatten out a little bit and we can see some good cricket come Friday.”
For Canada and Ireland, who both lost their opening games, this is a crucial encounter. If we lose here again, it will be difficult to get to the Super Eights. Canada hasn’t been playing well in T20Is. They lost to the USA in a thrilling match during their initial match in Dallas. Given that they have dropped their last five Twenty20 international matches, their confidence may not be well-served by all of this pitch talk.
Pitch number 4, which was used for both the warm-up match between India and Bangladesh and the Ireland vs. Canada match, is most likely the location of the match. Apart from the surface, the slow outfield made of sand hasn’t done the batters any favours either. Which team in New York will be the first to reach 100 points?