BCCI moves India-West Indies ODI from Kochi after Tendulkar, Chhetri’s request

Kochi
Kochi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium won’t feature any cricket match. Image Source: twitter

XtraTime Web Desk: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) today shifted the ODI match between India and West Indies which is set to be played in November from Kochi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (JLN) to Trivandrum after the social media went furious on saving the Kochi turf with #SaveKochiTurf.

The turf of Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Kochi was refurbished last year for the FIFA U17 World Cups as per the world football governing body’s regulations. And according many people, the turf could be damaged if it is used for cricket.

As of now, the nation has only six FIFA-approved football grounds and JLN Stadium is one of them. After the U17 World Cup, the ground has recently hosted the matches of Kerala Blasters in the Indian Super League (ISL) Season 4.

The move of saving the ground started after some football enthusiastic fans and journalists tweeted that the Kochi turf will be heavily affected if any cricket match happens on that pitch. After that Kerala Blasters star forward CK Vineeth was the first famous person who urged the authorities to not use the ground for playing a cricket match.

In the tweets he said, “For many different reasons, I feel this is wrong” and beside that while sharing his childhood memories of the co-existence of cricket and football in his life, he said “Effort and money has gone into the football pitch at the JN Stadium and I must implore the authorities that their work is not thrown away.”

The campaign got more backing from Indian football team’s captain Sunil Chhetri who also raised his voice to save the JLN stadium and said, “We football fans in India have small joys and reasons to be happy about. A proper football pitch is one of them.”

An hour after Chhetri’s tweet, Kerala Blasters’ co-owner and legendary Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar came out in support of the move and urged the Board to shift the ODI to Trivandrum from Kochi, beside that he also asked Committee of Administrators (CoA) chief Vinod Rai to look into the matter.

Sachin’s opening partner and ATK co-owner and former India skipper Sourav Ganguly also stood beside the Master Blaster and asked BCCI CEO Rahul Johri to look into the mateer and not only that, he also mentioned “KCA has super cricket grounds.”