The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced a prize money of Rs 1.25 crore for the curators and groundsmen who helped in conducting the Indian Premier League across six venues.
“We’ve witnessed some high octane games and I would like to thank each one of them for their hard work. 25 lacs each for CCI, Wankhede, DY Patil and MCA, Pune. 12.5 lacs for Eden and Narendra Modi Stadium,” BCCI secretary Jay Shah tweeted.
This year, 70 league matches were held across Mumbai and Pune, while the playoffs were held in Kolkata and Ahmedabad.
After hosting the tournament in the United Arab Emirates for the last two years, the BCCI decided to host the entire tournament in the country this time around, and keeping bio-bubble in mind, it was decided that the group stage fixtures will be played at the four grounds - the Wankhede Stadium, Brabourne Stadium and DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai along with the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune.
READ: Hardik Pandya: Responsibility gets the best out of me
With so many matches being played at those venues, there were apprehensions that the wickets may have worn out as the temperature soared in April and May. But most games in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai saw run feasts, even though bowlers, too, had something in it for them.
The curators put in the hard yards to ensure that the standard is maintained and there are no complaints about the surfaces. Under the watchful eyes of BCCI’s Taposh Chatterjee, Sunil Chauhan, Ramesh Mhamunkar and Prakash Adhav, the groundsmen made sure that things went smoothly.
The players and the coaches also lauded the wickets prepared for the tournament. “The pitches are wonderful. Every game has something to offer for the seamers in the first six overs, the spinners have come into the game and we have seen Yuzi (Yuzvendra) Chahal getting the purple cap. The wickets are really good, and we have also seen batters scoring hundreds, with a strike rate of 200-plus,” Sunrisers Hyderabad bowling coach Dale Steyn told Sportstar .
“My hats off to the curators. I think they have done a great job and they have kept this competition really, really interesting. There has been something in the wicket for everybody and that’s something you want from a cricket pitch - you don’t want to be dominated by one facet, be it bat or ball. That’s been fantastic,” Steyn had said.
The playoffs in Kolkata saw run-feats in both the qualifier and eliminator, while in Ahmedabad, the surface initially backed the bowlers, while the batters joined in the action later in the innings.
Comments
SHARE