Internet Desk: The decision of organizing Ranji Trophy games in neutral venues wasn’t quite satisfactory in its first attempt as the organizers showed negligence and provided less importance, thus disabling the credentials of the BCCI.
The BCCI initiated the above mentioned system to disable the teams getting home ground favoritism when the scheduled matches were to be played in a respective team’s home ground.
“The idea was good but the implementation was third class. Most host associations did not show interest in organising matches for other teams. The facilities were poor, be it providing us with good wickets, adequate balls or serving decent food. It could have been handled much better,” domestic cricket veteran Rajat Bhatia told the media.
The Delhi-based cricketer has played for three states and is currently with Rajasthan.
Bhatia, who played only four matches this season owing to family issues, was simply scathing in his criticism.
“The system was introduced to stop teams from taking undue home advantage with games often finishing inside two days. But the quality did not improve even though games were held at neutral venues.
“Take our match against Assam in Vizag for example. The wicket was not fit enough for a First-Class match and therefore the match was over well inside three days. And it was just two weeks before an international match. The groundsmen did not have much to say when we asked them why we were made to play on such a poor surface,” the 37-year-old said.
Pacers dominated in that match with Pankaj Singh taking a nine-wicket haul and Rajasthan winning the game by an innings and eight runs.
Another issue for the players was scheduling of the games as they had to travel to remote areas of the country with limited time in hand.
“Scheduling was a big problem. Sometimes there was just a three-day gap between games and we had to travel to places which were not easily accessible, which meant we had to spend a lot of time on the road in buses,” said Gujarat and India spinner Axar Patel.
Lack of interest for the games was another reason why Axar did not like the neutral venue initiative.
“What is the point of having matches in places where nobody comes to see us play? At least we had a decent turnout when we were playing at home. I hope we go back to the home and away format next season,” said the left-arm spinner, who is out of action with a wrist injury. .