Jos Buttler, the England captain, expressed his dissatisfaction with the sandy outfield in Dharamsala during a press conference ahead of his team’s match against Bangladesh at the HPCA Stadium on Tuesday, October 10. Buttler criticised the outfield’s condition and emphasised that players shouldn’t have to hold back while fielding to avoid potential injuries.
“I think any time you’re talking about being careful diving or sort of being careful when you’re fielding, it sort of goes against everything you want to be as a team,” Buttler said in the press-conference.
Concerns about the Dharamshala outfield emerged during the match between Bangladesh and Afghanistan on October 7, when Afghanistan’s Mujeeb-Ur-Rahman attempted a dive at deep backward square leg, only for his knee to get jammed into the turf, causing an awkward fall with some mud kicked up upon impact.
Jonathan Trott, the Afghanistan head coach, raised concerns about the outfield, and highlighted that the players’ hesitation to dive or field to avoid injuries hampered the quality of fielding.
“If you’ve got players unsure of whether they can dive… we see the product of cricket all around the world where players are taught, encouraged to improve their fielding,” said Trott. “And when you’ve got players worried about getting injured… I mean, we are lucky Mujeeb hasn’t got a serious knee injury towards the end. Yes, he probably shouldn’t have dived with his knee. But we saw the other night [in Ahmedabad], Devon Conway from New Zealand early on as well, so it’s something for them (the organisers) to look at for the future.”
Subsequently, following Trott’s complaints after Afghanistan’s match, the ICC rated Dharamshala’s outfield as ‘Average’.
Despite these concerns, it’s worth noting that the ICC’s independent pitch consultant assessed the outfield in the lead-up to the England-Bangladesh match and found it to be in acceptable condition. That evaluation aligned with the assessment by Match Referee Javagal Srinath, who is overseeing the game.
England, the defending champions, will be aiming for their first victory, having suffered a crushing nine-wicket defeat to New Zealand in their opening game in Ahmedabad.