New York Pitch Installation Underway Ahead of T20 World Cup
The Nassau County International Cricket Stadium has reached a significant milestone in preparation for the upcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in June. The pitches for the tournament have been successfully delivered and installed.
10 pitches in total have been transported to the New York venue, with the first match scheduled between Sri Lanka and South Africa on June 3. The installation process has already begun, with the pitches having been prepared by Adelaide Oval Turf Solutions in Florida since the end of last year.
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Four of the ten pitches will be prepared in the center of the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium under the supervision of Adelaide Oval Head Curator Damian Hough. The remaining six pitches will be laid at the neighboring practice facilities.
20 semi-trailer trucks were utilized to transport the pitches from Florida to New York. According to Hough, the delivery process went smoothly and everything is on schedule for the eight matches to be held at the 34,000 seat stadium located at Eisenhower Park in Nassau County, east of Manhattan.
“We couldn’t be happier,” Hough said. “Everything is going to plan, the pitches are in excellent condition and all of our benchmarks and measures that we take along the way are exceeding expectations.”
Nine of the 20 teams participating in this year’s T20 World Cup will play matches at the New York venue next month. The most anticipated match at the ground will take place on June 9, when arch-rivals India and Pakistan face off in the next chapter of their ongoing rivalry.
Hosts USA, neighbors Canada, Ireland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Netherlands, and Bangladesh are the other teams that will feature at the venue. The stadium has been constructed specifically for the tournament and Hough is expecting the ground conditions to provide a balanced contest between bat and ball.
“We hope we have got a good T20 pitch, that has good pace, good bounce and provides value for shots,” Hough said. “You want the batters to be able to play shots all over the ground so that is our design and at the start our ambition was to produce pitches along those lines.”