Kent Crawfton, the chief curator for the West Indies leg of the recently concluded T20 World Cup, has acknowledged that the pitch prepared for the first semi-final between Afghanistan and South Africa fell short of expectations.
The Indian team broke the ICC curse and won the trophy for the first time since 2007 in the final game of the T20 World Cup 2024 on June 29 at Barbados. Notably, there were plenty of interesting incidents from the showpiece event, but none of them compared to the Afghanistan campaign under Rashid Khan. Afghanistan, the tournament’s underdogs, advanced to the semi-finals by eliminating some of the finest cricket teams in the world, including the likes of New Zealand and Australia. However, they lost miserably to South Africa in the semifinals, which put an end to their journey.
Meanwhile, after being bundled out for 56 runs, Rashid Khan-led Afghanistan gave up on winning the tournament after failing to defend the low total against the Proteas side. However, a plethora of fans have expressed concerns about the pitch that was used for the first World Cup semifinal match between South Africa and Afghanistan in Trinidad. Afghanistan were bowled out for just 56 in 11.5 overs in their first semi-final match at the Brian Lara Academy stadium in Trinidad. South Africa, however, won the match by nine wickets after finishing the chase in nine overs and making it to the ICC finals.
In the same vein, Chief Curator Kent Crawfton of the West Indies recently came up and admitted that the curators intentionally tried to provide top-notch pitches that helped bowlers and batters equally. He further admitted that the Trinidad pitch was unprepared for the thrilling showdown.
“The intention was to produce good cricket pitches, with something in there for bowlers to work with. [However] The first semifinal pitch ended up being too one-sided. The preparation programme was not carried out as planned. Thus, it became a cracked surface causing too much variation in pace, bounce, and sideways movement,” Crawfton explained.
Following the loss, Afghanistan head coach Trott also confessed that he didn’t want to make headlines for speaking about the pitch after the poor loss. However, he further said that the pitch wasn’t great for the semi-final match, and he urged the higher cricketing body to prepare the pitch to witness the healthy competition between the bat and ball.
“I don’t want to get myself into trouble. But I also don’t want to sound a bit like ‘sour grapes’ but that’s not the pitch that you want to have a semi-final of a World Cup on. Plain and simple. It should be a fair contest,” Trott said.
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