Ireland head coach Heinrich Malan criticized the pitch for their T20 World Cup Group A match against India, stating that a good playing surface is crucial, but recent matches at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium have not lived up to that standard. Malan's comments come after India won the match at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium by eight wickets after bowling Ireland out for just 96, with the pitch having excessive swing and variable bounce, which was uneven on several occasions in the match.
“When you play the game you need a really good surface, or as good as you can get, and unfortunately what we've seen in the last few games doesn't necessarily meet that. So hopefully in the next day or so it can hopefully level off a bit and we can see some good cricket on Friday,” he said at the post-match press conference.
On Monday, Sri Lanka were bowled out for 77 at their venue as South Africa won the match on a challenging pitch. Wednesday's match will bring more attention to the fields in New York, especially with Ireland taking on Canada here on Friday and India taking on Pakistan on Sunday in a high-octane clash.
“I think we just want to see good cricket, don't we? It's the highlight of our event and it doesn't always have to be 200 players, it just has to be an even match and I think if you look nowadays it's debatable where that was,” Malan added.
India's fast bowlers, led by Hardik Pandya's 3-27, blew Ireland away by picking eight wickets between them. Ireland struggled to adapt and change their batting plans on a tricky pitch. Only Gareth Delany managed to top the score with 26 and was involved in partnerships of 27 and 19 for the ninth and tenth wickets respectively.
“When we were finding it really tough, we were talking about whether we could get 130-140 and whether we could back that up in the execution of our skills from a bowling perspective, that's probably, we were looking at trying and getting into one stage.
“If you look at the way they bowled up front, it was obviously quite challenging. We had to change our game plan a few times and unfortunately it just didn't go the way we wanted it to. Mike Tyson said If you change the game plan you're going to take a hit in your face, and I think there was some serious bowling going on.
“They have three or four serious fast bowlers that we have seen over time who can perform at this level and look, we have communicated well. But it is one thing to talk about it and another thing to do it under pressure to perform when there is a quality that comes your way,” said Malan.
He signed off by saying that Ireland had done as much homework on the behavior of the pitches in New York, but that did not help them beat India. “We tried to do as much homework as possible even though we weren't training on the ground or playing on the surface.
“We spoke to the groundsman; the scores were completely different in that warm-up game that was played on that surface. So we didn't necessarily expect it to behave that way, but again, we have to be better with our execution of our skills and That is obviously something we will think about.”
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