IND unhappy with mediocre T20 World Cup arrangements? Rahul Dravid says practicing in ‘public park’

This T20 World Cup 2024 has not been up to the mark until now. The pitches are under scanner, so are the outfields, and now India head coach Rahul Dravid has, in a subtle way, criticized the practice venue for the team. Rohit Sharma & Co. have been practicing at the Cantiague Park, about five miles away from the Nassau County International Stadium in New York, and Dravid doesn’t seem to happy with the facilities there.

“It’s a bit strange to be practicing in a park,” the India coach was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz. “Obviously at the World Cups you’d be in big stadiums or you’d be at cricket stadiums traditionally. But you know, we’re at a public park and practicing.”

These remarks have created a stir a day after SA vs SL match, where Sri Lanka could only score 77 runs at the Nassau Stadium. Now Dravid only hopes that things will improve at the venue.

No or Little Buzz for T20 World Cup

Rahul Dravid also spoke about how, there isn’t much interest in the T20 World Cup, with the big teams yet to play their matches. The crowd is expected to start getting involved as well, with India taking on Ireland in their first match on June 5. “Yeah, obviously it’s slightly different. It’s obviously exciting that it’s coming to a new country, it’s coming to a new place.

“(It) feels slightly different in terms of, I guess, typically the buzz that you have around these events, with cricket not being one of the major sports in this country. So you don’t feel that kind of buzz over here. But hopefully once our games start and a lot of the Indian fans do start coming in, you start seeing that similar kind of excitement.

“So things are certainly different from that perspective. But yeah, I think from a preparation perspective and from what we want to get out of it, I don’t think that’s changed, our preparation, our professionalism, the way we are trying to approach things. It’s pretty, pretty similar to what we would normally do.”