T20 World Cup: New Kardinia Park wicket draws criticism for being ‘tough’ batting surface

Kardinia Park’s cricket pitch has drawn criticism from players after a poor batting performance on the second day of the T20 World Cup in Geelong.

Netherlands' Paul van Meekeren (C) celebrates the wicket of Namibia's Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton (R) during the ICC men’s Twenty20 World Cup 2022 cricket match between Namibia and Netherlands at Kardinia Park in Geelong on October 18, 2022. (Photo by WILLIAM WEST / AFP) / -- IMAGE RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - STRICTLY NO COMMERCIAL USE --

KARDINIA Park’s cricket pitch has drawn criticism from players after a poor batting performance on the second day of the T20 World Cup in Geelong.

With Tuesday’s double-header being held on a different pitch to Sunday’s tournament opener, cricket fans watched on as inconsistent bounce and low scoring plagued both the Netherlands victory over Namibia and Sri Lanka’s win against United Arab Emirates.

Netherlands batter Bas de Leede made an undefeated 30 in the successful run chase, and said it was a “tough” pitch to predict.

“The surface was a little bit two-paced in a way, where the quicker balls that skidded through stayed quite low, and then you had the odd slower ball which held,” he said.

Tuesday’s wicket was reportedly “tough” to bat on. Picture: William West

“So I guess it was tough to really hit through the line, it was more of a nudgy type surface where you tried to play as straight as you can because you don’t want to get found out by the skiddy one.

“For all of the bowlers, the more simple we can keep it the better it is on this surface, you don’t have to have three or four different balls on a surface like this.

“If you can nail your length and you can nail your slower ball you can pretty much, I won’t say unplayable, but you’re tough to face.”

Namibia bowler Jan Frylinck agreed the pitch was difficult to bat on, but his side’s late-innings batting let them down.

“The surface was quite tough, but in saying that I think we wrestled it back quite nicely, and then we ended up in the death overs we sort of just let it slip,” Frylinck said.

Both Namibia and Netherlands players reported that Sunday’s wicket was more friendly to bat on. Picture: Martin Keep

“We were about 15 to 20 runs short, I think we set ourselves up really nicely to get about 30 to 35 runs in those death overs and unfortunately we didn’t do that.”

Netherlands will play Sri Lanka on Thursday in an attempt to go undefeated in the group stage, while Namibia will play the winless UAE.

Originally published as T20 World Cup: New Kardinia Park wicket draws criticism for being ‘tough’ batting surface