‘All the cricket boards have got plenty of money’ – Sunil Gavaskar calls out CSA for poor management for India’s tour of South Africa 1st T20

India’s former cricketer Sunil Gavaskar brutally criticized Cricket South Africa for failing to manage covering the ground during the rain for the first T20 match of India’s tour of South Africa. Notably, India vs South Africa’s first T-20 match in Durban was abandoned without even a toss as the rain continued to persist in the ground. 

Gavaskar believes that even if Cricket South Africa has less pooling of funds than the Indian cricket board, ground covers are an absolute necessity for every ground to have if they are hosting a match. India will play their next T20 match against South Africa on 12 December, in Gqebera from 7:30 PM IST, where the squad will be led by Suryakumar Yadav. 

Sunil Gavaskar on CSA’s poor management for 1st T20I 

“If the ground remains uncovered and the rain stops, you know it doesn’t start for another hour. Suddenly, it rains again. So there’s no play whatsoever. Everybody (cricket boards) is getting a lot of money. Let’s make no mistake. All the cricket boards have got plenty of money. If they say they don’t, they are lying. They might not have as much money as the BCCI. Fair enough. But, every board has money to buy these covers to cover the entire ground,” Gavaskar was quoted on Star Sports.

“So many World Cup matches in England did not take place because the ground was not covered. The rain had stopped, but the rest of the ground was, you know, wet. So, a lot of teams lost points. South Africa, I remember that they wanted to play against some team and the match didn’t take place or something had happened, mainly because the outfield was wet,” he added. 

India’s schedule for tour of South Africa

India’s squad for tour of South Africa 

India ODI Squad: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Sai Sudharsan, Tilak Varma, Rajat Patidar, Rinku Singh, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (C)(wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mukesh Kumar, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Deepak Chahar.

T20I Squad: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav (C), Rinku Singh, Shreyas Iyer, Ishan Kishan (wk), Jitesh Sharma (wk), Ravindra Jadeja (VC), Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Mohd. Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Deepak Chahar.

India Test Squad: Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan (wk), KL Rahul (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mohd. Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Mohd. Shami*, Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Prasidh Krishna.