England captain Jos Buttler made a scathing criticism of the Dharamshala outfield, calling it “poor”, ahead of England’s match against Bangladesh.
England, who lost their first match of the World Cup 2023 vs New Zealand, will take on Shakib Al Hasan’s team on Tuesday at the HPCA Stadium in Dharamshala. A major concern that has emerged for both teams is the state of the outfield at this ground.
In the first match of the tournament here, between Bangladesh and Afghanistan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman dug his knee into the ground when diving to save a boundary. Afghanistan coach Jonathan Trott then expressed grave concern over the outfield, saying that Mujeeb was lucky to not sustain any “serious knee injury” when putting in that dive.
But the ICC pitch consultant Andy Atkinson said that it was “comfortable” after inspecting the outfield on Sunday, and match referee Javagal Srinath agreed with it. The outfield was rated “average” by the match officials, but many fans and experts, including Jos Buttler, termed it as “poor”.
Jos Buttler even said that the players of both teams will need to be careful when putting a dive in the outfield, hinting that this outfield is not fit for a World Cup game.
“I think it’s poor, in my own opinion. I think any time you’re talking about being careful diving, or maybe being careful when you’re fielding, it goes against everything you want to be as a team,” he said.
“You want to dive through a row of houses to save a run. That’s obviously not ideal, the way the surface is, the outfield. But we won’t use it as an excuse. We’ll adapt to it. But certainly if you feel like you’re having to hold yourself back, it’s not a place you want to be as a team, or as a player, or in a World Cup match.”
Jos Buttler questions the integrity of the game
Jos Buttler further went on to express his dismay as his players were told to not dive in order to protect themselves from injury.
“The powers that be are comfortable. The only thing I would question is, if you are telling players not to dive and stuff, does that question the integrity of the game? The worst-case scenario is something bad happens, but fingers crossed that doesn’t happen for both teams,” the England skipper added.
