Okay, Google! Show me India vs Pakistan venue for T20 World Cup 2024. I am sorry, it’s not available! If you try and do a quick Google search, you will get a park where kids go for a run and dogs get their potty training. Yes, Eisenhower Park in New York’s Nassau County will host the most prestigious IND vs PAK T20 World Cup match in six months. Yet, there is no stadium. Heck! Even a single brick has not been laid yet. And ICC’s adventurous USA sojourn is clean bowled even before a match is played.
Eisenhower Park wasn’t the first choice though. It was the Bronx. But the locals were not keen to have a cricket stadium and their protest forced the venue to Nassau.
As per pictures and video shared by cricket journalist Peter Della Penna, Eisenhower Park is still a park with locals continuing to enjoy their evenings with kids with no construction worker in sight.
“Under construction? They haven’t even broken ground yet, and won’t until February. This is what the Nassau County, NY cricket stadium site for the 2024 T20 World Cup currently looks like,” Peter Della Penna tweeted.
IND vs PAK T20 World Cup 2024 in jeopardy?
The current situation raises serious doubt about USA’s capacity to host a global cricket event. The question is can the USA deliver a stadium by June? Probably, yes. But the work won’t begin until February. Hence, New York will only have about three and half months to be ready with an ICC-approved stadium capable of hosting a match like IND vs PAK. For those authorities in the USA still in the dark about cricket, even 130,000 sitting capacity could be less.
But the ICC has been promised a temporary stadium of 34,000 sitting capacity at the park where a sign says: No golfing in this area. And where Babar Azam, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma & others will practice in six months, local cricket club still has a pitch with a match going on.
Editors pick
