Larger than life posters of Suresh Raina and Sudeep Tyagi, both local boys, were enough to attract a capacity crowd at the Mohan Meakins Cricket Ground — the venue for the Ranji Trophy Super League match, here on Tuesday.
But, what followed wasn’t something the crowd had expected.
The day’s play was called off without even a single ball being bowled.
The reason: Damp pitch owing to early morning showers. Apparently, the pitch was duly covered but the covers were perforated at some places, allowing the water to pass through and no amount of artificial drying — which even included burning of wood on the pitch — could make it good enough for action.
“We could not do much, the showers were too heavy,” said Ghaziabad Cricket Association vice-president Arvind Dogra, who inspected the pitch at six in the morning.
“The area around the pitch was completely water-logged,” he added.
The Association’s general secretary, Manoj Makar, said: “The pitch was covered, but I guess, the water must have seeped in through the small holes, which are often difficult to detect. So, to prevent such a situation from recurring, the association has procured a fresh set of covers.”
With no action on the field, the players got busy with some ‘foot-volley’ while others chatted away till one in the afternoon when the umpires took the final decision on the matter after an inspection.
But disappointment was more than apparent when a player said, “Instead of wasting money on putting up such large posters, they could have bought better covers.”