Head coaches Jonathan Trott and Gary Stead expressed their disappointment at the Greater Noida Test match between Afghanistan and New Zealand being abandoned without a ball being bowled.
The one-off Test between the teams was abandoned on Friday (September 13) after overnight rain in Greater Noida meant no play was possible on the fifth morning after the first four days had already been called off without so much as a toss.
Days three and four had also fallen victim to heavy overnight rains, but days one and two of the match (Monday and Tuesday) were lost not due to rain itself, but the lack of the venue to cope with water damage from a couple of days earlier.
Read more: Afghanistan-New Zealand Test abandoned without a ball bowled in 21st-century first
In the absence of a super sopper and other equipment, ground staff had to resort to using table fans and cutting up dry patches of the practice area to replace wet areas of the outfield, which did not work. Ahead of day one, Afghanistan's Ibrahim Zadran injured his ankle in training as well.
All this has led to the stadium coming under intense scrutiny over its fitness to host international cricket. On Friday, at the post-match press conference, both head coaches expressed frustration at the fact that the match did not take place at all.
Also read: Afghanistan v New Zealand Test match: The great fiasco of Greater Noida
Trott: Hope it's a good learning case
Afghanistan head coach Jonathan Trott said, according to ESPNCricinfo that some of the arrangements at the ground may have been "taken for granted": "We're disappointed. We'd geared ourselves up, and we'd trained really well. So heartbreaking not to be able to play.
"What I hope it is, it's just a good learning case that things can crop up... everything has got to be checked out and made sure that it's ready for Test-match cricket.
"And I think sometimes we take it for granted when we go and play, all these things that have already been done in the past for other nations or other venues - with regards to drainage or ground staff, all those sort of things."
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Trott further praised the ground staff for their efforts to ready the venue, and added that he had been informed by locals that the rain Greater Noida had received over the past few days had been unseasonal.
But Trott's comments about perhaps taking the facilities for granted appear to be at odds with the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB)'s official line.
On Tuesday, the board's international cricket manager Menhajuddin Raz had been quoted as saying, "As per the international standard, like at least three-four months, even six months before, you make a recce of the venue. And then, you make sure everything is normal.
"It's not only us [the home team] who does this recce. It's the visiting team as well - their team and their player association team do the recce, too. Everything was so good."
Afghanistan's next engagement is an ODI series against South Africa in Sharjah, starting in five days.
Stead: Lost the opportunity to be match-hardened and match-ready
Trott's counterpart, Gary Stead, said his New Zealand side had been looking forward to playing their first-ever Test against Afghanistan, an opportunity that "doesn't come around often". He also lamented the fact that the abandonment meant New Zealand would have limited match practice ahead of their tour of Sri Lanka later this month.
"The most disappointing part for us is that we lost the opportunity to be match-hardened and match-ready when we go into our Test match next week," he said.
With no play across all five days, the Afghanistan-New Zealand Test became the first men’s Test of the 21st century to be called off without a ball bowled.
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) September 13, 2024
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"We were frustrated. We have come here to play cricket and play a Test match and as Jonathan [Trott] said, Test cricket, certainly to our group of players that is here, that's very, very dear to their hearts and every Test you get to play in is a big one."
"The conditions that we face in Galle will be, I'm sure, different to Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai when we come back here again [for the India tour]. So it's still about adapting to the different surfaces.
"But also banking the knowledge you have created in the past even though it's been a couple of [sessions of] trainings out there, we'd still bank on what we've learnt on those sort of pitches."
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