The Ranji Trophy match between Railways and Punjab on the Karnail Singh Stadium was on Wednesday suspended after the monitor was deemed “dangerous and unfit for play” by the match officers, who determined to have a two-day sport on a brand new floor starting Thursday.
As many as 24 wickets fell in simply 103 overs with quick bowlers accounting for 20 of them when play was stopped by the match officers. Punjab was at 18 for 4 of their second essay after taking a 12-run first innings lead.
“I have never seen a wicket like that in Ranji before. The bounce was too unpredictable making the pitch very unsafe. What we have been told that the game will be played on a fresh pitch,” Punjab batter Abhishek Sharma informed PTI.
“The umpires and match referee took the right call to abandon today’s play and start afresh tomorrow. Players put a lot of effort into preparation for this game so disappointed to see a wicket like that.” The choice was taken through the drinks break within the second session when on-field umpires Okay Madanagopal and Rajeev Godara mentioned the matter with match referee Youraj Singh and likewise had a phrase with each captains – Mandeep Singh of Punjab and Karn Sharma of Railways.
With the Elite Group D sport diminished to a two-day affair, a result’s extremely unlikely, which could have an effect on each Railways and Punjab’s probabilities within the match.
Punjab’s first match had resulted in a draw after dangerous gentle introduced early finish to its contest towards Chandigarh, whereas the Railways had misplaced to Vidarbha by 194-run.
In the previous too, tracks of Karnail Singh Stadium had been in news for the mistaken causes with BCCI’s technical committee placing the venue on a watchlist for producing poor pitches in 2011.
A 12 months later, the venue was banned for 2 years from internet hosting video games after the committee found that native curators had intentionally under-prepared the wicket to assist Railways, forcing the crew to shift its residence base to Bhubaneswar.